This was inevitable, folks. It was only a matter of time before the liberal media started suggesting climate change was to blame for Hurricane Harvey. Friday morning’s CNN Newsroom went there as co-host John Berman wondered aloud to a guest if the potentially-devastating rainfall predictions are do to climate change.
“Is there a why to this? Why there is so much water associated with this storm? One of the things we heard is that climate change does impact the intensity of many of the storms that the that we see,” Berman stated in a question to former National Hurricane Center (NHC) director Bill Read.
Thankfully, Read was quite dubious of this claim and pushed back that he “probably wouldn't attribute what we're looking at here” seeing as how “[t]his is not an uncommon occurrence to see storms grow and intensify rapidly in the western Gulf of Mexico.”
“That is as long as we've been tracking them, that has occurred. The why for the big rain is the stationarity. The fact that the storm is going to come inland and not move. That's — that’s while it has happened in some cases, had a really big storm come and stall I guess is really rare,” Read added.
To go one step further, Tropical Storm Allison in 2001 was similarly catastrophic in terms of rainfall as it brought over 20 inches to some parts of Texas. Giving credit where credit is due, The Washington Post published a great story online Thursday afternoon about Allison seeing as how the pathway was similar to what is expected from Harvey.
Going back to the hurricane that smacked nearby Galveston in 1900, hurricanes making landfall and causing extreme damage along the Texas coast line are nothing new, whether it’s that storm or Hurricane Ike in 2008 or any lesser storm like Tropical Storm Cindy on June 22.
The media have been doing this for years whenever any tropical system comes within striking distance of the U.S. mainland. Last year, Hurricane Matthew struck Georgia, Florida, and both North and South Carolina and the media exploited a singular system for political gain.
Such examples from Matthew included but were not limted to NBC’s Ron Allen using Matthew to promote the need for the Paris Climate deal, PBS’s Judy Woodruff floating am “interconnection” between the hurricane and climate change, and all three networks asking for an extended voter registration period.
Here’s the relevant transcript from August 25's CNN Newsroom with John Berman and Poppy Harlow:
CNN Newsroom with John Berman and Poppy Harlow
August 25, 2017
9:32 a.m. EasternJOHN BERMAN: We could see this storm park for almost five days in some places and we hear three feet of rain. I've seen a 40-inches estimate in some localities. What does that mean? You know, Houston gets, I think, 50 inches of rain a year, so when you're talking two feet or more, that's just got to be a huge problem for these areas.
BILL READ: Right and it's not that unusually to get more than 20 inches of rain. I've counted about ten of those kind of weather events I worked in my 40 years in Texas and mostly due to tropical storms that have come inland and died out. But they’re usually isolated over a pocket. The difference here is we're forecasting this over a wide swath and that’s what really concerns me is think about this. It comes inland, it stops right where it went inland, just as the folks are trying to recover and first responders are trying to help people out from the landfall, all this heavy rain is falling and that’ll really retard their efforts to do the same down there and get things back to normal. And then, of course, you have what goes on over the next week effecting major metropolitan areas, anywhere from San Antonio to Houston.
BERMAN: Is there a why to this? Why there is so much water associated with this storm? One of the things we heard is that climate change does impact the intensity of many of the storms that the that we see.
READ: I'm not — I'm probably wouldn't attribute what we're looking at here. This is not an uncommon occurrence to see storms grow and intensify rapidly in the western Gulf of Mexico. That is as long as we've been tracking them, that has occurred. The why for the big rain is the stationarity. The fact that the storm is going to come inland and not move. That's — that’s while it has happened in some cases, had a really big storm come and stall I guess is really rare.
BERMAN: And then it could bend back out over the Gulf as well, which is something people have to watch very closely over the next few days.
