The Head of the Climate Change Information Center in Egypt, Mohamed Ali Fahim, said that Hurricane Milton comes less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene in the US, which killed about 200 people and left hundreds missing, causing widespread power and communications outages in six states in the southeastern US.
Hurricane Milton, which threatens coastal areas of Florida, comes amid warnings of severe catastrophic destruction in coastal areas in Florida with wind speeds of 285 kilometers per hour.
It is expected to cause catastrophic damage upon reaching land, especially in the Tampa Bay area, which has a population of more than three million.
According to Fahim, reports indicate that the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico contributed to the hurricane’s strength, and experts confirm that climate change may increase the chances of strong hurricanes as a result of rising ocean temperatures.
The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, previously warned that “half of humanity is in the danger zone, due to floods, severe droughts, storms and forest fires.”
“No country is immune,” he warned.
Is Egypt at risk?
Fahim confirmed that climate change impacts all countries around the world.
He assured however that Egypt is in no particular risk of receiving violent hurricanes due to its geographical location.
“Climate change and weather conditions in Egypt are represented by the overlap of climatic seasons; meaning summer can extend beyond its end date, as we are witnessing now, or autumn can be rainy beyond averages in the form of an early rainy winter, as happened in 2016, which caused floods in Alexandria and Wadi el-Natrun,” he explained.
Summer can also come early at the end of February – as happened in 2018 and 2020 – which caused major problems for agricultural crops such as olives and vegetable crops, Fahim said.
