Thread by @EricHolthaus

As terrifying as Sally's rapidly-intensifying winds are, its biggest threat is likely going to be incredibly heavy rainfall.

Latest forecasts are for a 3-4 day slow loop over southern Mississippi & Alabama, and up to 27 inches of rainfall.

Be prepared for catastrophic flooding.

Scenarios that come to mind:

Danny (1997) - Alabama
Georges (1998) - Mississippi
Allison (2001) - Texas
Florence (2018) - Carolinas

These storms brought 25-35 inches of rain over a span of four days, about what Sally is expected to do.

There's increasing scientific consensus that slow-moving, rapidly-intensifying, extremely heavy rain producing hurricanes on the Gulf Coast -- like Sally -- are going to be a hallmark of climate change.

phys.org/news/2020-04-h…

Hurricanes have been rapidly intensifying in a "highly unusual" way in the Atlantic for decades now b/c of human-caused climate change.

Hurricane Laura, which hit Louisiana ~3 weeks ago, was the fastest-intensifying Gulf of Mexico hurricane in history.
yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/08/climat…

Intense rainstorms is one of the best-known and most-studied effects of climate change, and one of its most deadly.

Hurricane Sally will likely be one of the rainiest hurricanes ever to make landfall in the central Gulf Coast.

insideclimatenews.org/news/01062020/…

And of course, sea level rise has boosted the level of the ocean by about a foot on the northern Gulf Coast over the past 100 years or so, worsening coastal flooding.

All this evidence points to an inescapable fact: Climate change has unequivocally made Hurricane Sally worse.