John Rothmann and Hurricane Ian
If it seems like the devastation caused by Hurricane Ian came on quickly, you're right.
In just two days, the storm's maximum sustained wind speed more than doubled, from 75 miles per hour on Monday morning, to 155 miles per hour just before landfall on Wednesday morning.
"It doesn't really get much worse than this, to have a strengthening, possibly rapidly intensifying hurricane landfall," said Brent Hewett, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service Twin Cities.
Though devastating, Hewett says the changes weren't entirely surprising based on the conditions in the Gulf of Mexico that the hurricane encountered during those 48 hours. Moist air and low wind shear both contribute to rapid intensification, and unseasonably warm water provided even more fuel than normal.
Hewett says a very quiet hurricane season prior to hurricane Ian is partially to blame.
"When you don't have a lot of tropical systems in a season, the water is allowed to warm kind of continuously without anything mixing it up," Hewett said.
And if you add those seasonal conditions to years of warming brought on by climate change, experts say this storm had even more fuel.
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