What is making Hurricane Milton so ferocious

Waters in the Gulf of Mexico started to break all-time temperature highs this summer, but recent weeks have seen an extra jolt of warmth — what scientists describe as a “marine heat wave” that provided additional fuel to the storms.

“Marine heat waves are like the monsters for the future,” said Soheil Radfar, a coastal hazards researcher at the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa. “We should be prepared against this monster that is going to supercharge tropical cyclones and make them stronger.”

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