The US was in the crosshairs of both the Atlantic and Pacific typhoon seasons over the weekend, with storms hitting Puerto Rico and Alaska.
More than one million customers in Puerto Rico are still without power today, three days after the island was hit by a powerful storm. Before the storm moves on to batter other parts of the Caribbean, it is expected to bring life threatening and catastrophic flooding to Puerto Rico.
Much of Alaska's western coastline is reeling from the damage done by an unusual Northern Pacific storm. Entire homes were destroyed by the storm. According to the National Weather Service, it was the strongest storm in over a decade.
The Caribbean, Gulf Coast, and Eastern US are in the middle of the Atlantic Hurricane season, which runs from June through November. The typhoon season in the western North Pacific typically lasts from May to November. The US doesn't usually have to worry about storms in the Pacific but this time it did.
The US is not the only one enduring these brutal storm seasons. Millions of people were forced to leave their homes. The storm weakened on Monday, but still wreaked havoc.
Climate change is making storms more unpredictable around the world. The lack of predictability is not new. It is too soon for studies to figure out what role climate change played in the storms. Climate scientists know that warmer ocean waters are making storms stronger and more dangerous.
The area of the Pacific that is usually too cold to produce a typhoon is where Merbok formed. The storm traveled through waters that were warmer than they have been in the past.
There is a good chance that Merbok was formed because of the warming ocean. There wouldn't have been as much precipitation in the storm if the ocean had been cooler in 1960.
As bad as this storm was, and it was very bad, others will come, according to the author. The storm hit more isolated communities in rural parts of the state.
Whether or not the lights come back on in Puerto Rico in the coming hours and days will show what kind of lessons officials have learned. The catastrophe that took place there after the storm took place almost five years ago to the day. It was the longest power outage in US history. Local leaders and emergency response experts criticized federal agencies for a bungled response to a crisis in a US territory, compared to similar disasters on the mainland.
Carmen Yuln Cruz is the mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico. In front of our eyes, we are seeing it again.
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