BONITA SPRINGS, Fla. (WSVN) — While Floridians hope this hurricane season ends without a storm battering the state, scientists at a university in Fort Myers are using unique technology to predict a storm’s strength.
More than 10 months after Hurricane Michael wreaked havoc on the Florida Panhandle, and nearly two years after Irma slammed into the Florida Keys, the state is bracing for what might come next.
Joanne Muller, a scientist at Florida Gulf Coast University, is digging for those answers underwater.
“It’s a relatively new science,” she said.
7News cameras captured Muller and her team pulling samples from the muck and dirt of the sea floor off Bonita Springs.
“We’re pretty much looking for a really organic bottom, a lot of dark sediment, really fluffy sediment that we can actually get a core through,” said Florida Gulf Coast researcher Adam Catasus.
The technique, called coring, involves digging in the dirt underwater to uncover information about hurricanes from thousands of years ago. That can help predict how strong future hurricanes will be.
By studying patterns in the sediment, Muller points to evidence that forecasts more severe hurricanes. She matches up hurricane records with sea surface temperatures to predict the chaos that these massive storms will create as sea temperatures continue to rise.
“At the moment, we’re projecting that we’ll see more intense hurricanes in the future, and the geologic record that we are uncovering is showing the same thing,” said Muller.
Her predictions match up with the latest National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecasts. They warn of hurricane activity above normal, with the possibility of five to nine hurricanes. At least two of those could be major hurricanes.
“These cores, they tell a story, and it’s the thing that I love so much about geology: there’s so much history there,” said Muller. “It’s really important that we can understand them as best as we can so that we can make more accurate predictions going forward.”
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