Tropical Storm Barry is part of an alarming trend driven by climate change, experts say

Parts of the South, including much of Louisiana, are bracing for potential catastrophic levels of rain this weekend as Tropical Storm Barry draws near.

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) said the storm could strengthen to hurricane levels by Friday night or Saturday morning. But experts cautioned on Friday that the real danger associated with Barry is from the rains the storm will bring: A torrential downpour is set to fall on an area already saturated with water.

“If they push it high enough, it’ll overtop the levees,” Darryl Malek-Wiley, an environmental justice organizer in New Orleans, told ThinkProgress in advance of the storm.

Barry is expected to make landfall on Saturday, bringing between 10 and 20 inches of rain to the region.

Read the story from ThinkProgress by E.A. Crunden - “Tropical Storm Barry is part of an alarming trend driven by climate change, experts say."

Hurricane Alex blasts into the record books

Hurricane Alex blasted into the record books on Thursday as the first Atlantic hurricane to form during the month of January in more than three-quarters of a century, U.S. weather forecasters said.

The storm, with wind gusts up to 85 miles an hour (137 kph), was expected to bear down on the Azores islands off the coast of Portugal on Friday, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami. It did not pose a threat to the United States.

Local authorities issued a hurricane warning for five islands in the central Azores, which could see flash flooding, mudslides and storm surge, said NHC spokesman Dennis Feltgen.

Read the Huffington Post story -   “January Hurricane Forms In Atlantic For First Time In 78 Years.”