Hurricane Helene smacking the panhandle of Florida on Thursday brought to light a few unique circumstances for hurricanes in the Gulf. The waters of the Gulf of Mexico are quite deep, especially towards the central part known as the Sigsbee Deep or the "Abyssal Plain." The areas closer to the continental shelf are fairly shallow. With the Gulf an average of 4 degrees warmer these days, the wallop was quite heavy due to these factors. The Hurricane hit an area of the Florida coast wich has a round bay shape, which exacerbated the storm surge. When a cat 4 has 140 mph winds pushes water up on a shallow land shelf in a circular bay, the flood waters pushed up 15 feet or more. This Hurricane grew fast in the warm Gulf, hit the wrong geographic location, resulting in yet another multi-billion cleanup. And the priceless lives this storm took, including at least two first-responders, is something we can never calculate. Let's talk about this with our students before we collectively forget about it.
