Scientists study Helene damage to predict future landslides
Quoting Kody Fisher on WISH TV:
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (WISH) — Scientists studying damage from Hurricane Helene hope to better predict landslides in the future.
Brian Yanites is an associate professor at Indiana University. He studies earth and atmospheric sciences. He was monitoring the river levels outside Asheville, North Carolina, when Helene was coming through. “It was a full 10 feet higher, 50% higher then it’s previous record. So, unprecedented? Yes, definitely.”
Yanites is on a team of scientists studying Hurricane Helene. Their main focus will be to see how the rain impacted the landslides, which impacted the flooding.
Travis O’Brien, a climate scientist at IU, said, “This is prob
ably something we’ll be talking about like Hurricane Katrina.”
O’Brien says climate change played a role in how things played out. “We know that a warmer atmosphere holds a lot more water. So, more water in an atmosphere in a hurricane means a lot more rain."
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