Wait Till Next Time

If a little heated water in the Atlantic can create Floyd, what storms will global warming bring?

Human memories are short, and even as the tattered ghost of Hurricane Floyd finally blew itself out over eastern Canada last weekend, it was easy to forget that it began the week as a meteorological giant--one of the century's largest and most powerful Atlantic storms. If it seems as if hurricanes are getting stronger these days, that's because they are. After a 30-year lull, the U.S. is once again being visited by hurricanes the size of the ones that battered the Eastern seaboard in the 1940s, '50s and '60s. Thanks to an unlucky confluence of events--warm Atlantic waters, brisk trade winds...

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