Unlike hurricanes that might ravage a coastline, push a few miles inland and eventually dissipate, Helene, in part because of its sheer size and the speed with which it was traveling North, ravaged inland parts of the country.

Helene is the eighth Category 4 or 5 Atlantic hurricane to make landfall in the US in the last eight years. That’s as many of these intense hurricanes as hit the US in the prior 57 years.

Climate change can make hurricanes like Helene stronger than they otherwise would have been. This was a prime example of a phenomenon called “rapid intensification.”