Climate change triggered intensified rain, wind in Hurricane Milton

Experts said Friday that human-induced climate change made Hurricane Milton, which lashed Florida this week, wetter and windier.

"Heavy one-day rainfall events such as the one associated with Milton are 20-30 percent more intense and about twice as likely in today's climate," the international World Weather Attribution (WWA) group said in a report.

The effect boosted Milton's wind strength by about 10 percent, making what would have been a Category 2 storm a more destructive Category 3, on a five-point scale, the report said.

With every one-step increase in category the risk of damage from a hurricane multiplies by four, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The WWA's rapid-fire study released just two days after Milton hit the west coast of Florida, killing at least 16 people, is less detailed than other studies often done by the group.

But on Wednesday they did publish detailed work on Hurricane Helene, which hit Florida two weeks ago, looking at many similar factors leading to hurricanes, such as sea surface temperature.

The results of the study of Milton are consistent with those of other hurricanes that hit the Gulf coast of Florida, said the WWA, an international network of climate scientists from several high-profile institutions.

"We are therefore confident that such changes in heavy rainfall are attributable to human-caused climate change," the group said.

Milton's explosive growth in strength – it went from category one to Category 5 in a matter of hours as it rumbled east across the Gulf of Mexico earlier this week – "was driven and sustained by the very high sea surface temperatures in the Gulf," the group said.