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In May, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) an “above-normal� hurricane season this year, which many meteorologists also described as “extraordinary.�

For North Carolina, the season began quickly with the slow-moving Tropical Storm Debby, which drenched much of the state and raised flooding concerns in parts of the eastern region. The season then fizzled out and became unexpectedly “ and “ during its peak, leaving experts somewhat puzzled.

“The impactful and deadly 2024 hurricane season started off intensely, then relaxed a bit before roaring back,� said Matthew Rosencrans, lead hurricane forecaster at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, a division of NOAA’s National Weather Service.

“Several possible factors contributed to the peak season lull in the Atlantic region. The particularly intense winds and rains over Western Africa created an environment that was less hospitable for storm development.�

However, it was calm before the storm.

made landfall in North Carolina as a Category 4 storm on Sept. 27, bringing catastrophic flooding to the western part of the state. The hurricane, now the deadliest U.S. hurricane since Katrina in 2005 and the fourth deadliest to make landfall on the mainland since 1950, has caused 103 storm-related deaths in North Carolina as of Dec. 2.

Asheville, a city long considered a “climate haven,� was devastated by over 15 inches of rainfall from Helene. Already saturated soils and streams from previous storms contributed to widespread destruction, leaving the city without power and clean drinking water. It wasn’t until last Monday that clean drinking water was restored to the city, allowing residents to drink directly from the tap.

President Joe Biden last month nearly $100 billion in emergency disaster aid from Congress following Hurricanes Helene and Milton, while Gov. Roy Cooper to Washington, D.C., to lobby lawmakers for $25.5 billion to support the recovery effort.

“Hurricane Helene was the deadliest and most damaging storm our state has ever faced, and western North Carolina needs our help to rebuild,� Cooper said before the trip. “There is a long, complex and expensive recovery ahead that will be difficult to accomplish without significant and immediate funding from federal and state governments.�

The aftermath of the hurricane, particularly in North Carolina, has led many environmental and climate experts to warn about the steady advance of climate change and the illusion of a “climate haven.�

While it’s difficult to directly link climate change to Hurricane Helene, experts explain that its landfall aligns with ongoing trends in tropical systems in recent years, with more intense, wetter, and frequent storms due to climate change.

of global warming is taking place in the ocean, and hurricanes intensify in warm water. The Gulf of Mexico has experienced record-high temperatures over the past two years amid the global warming, reaching its highest surface temperatures on record in modern history in August with averages approaching 90 degrees.

The atmosphere above the Gulf also was unusually humid before Hurricane Helene, another known effect of climate change, which provided ideal conditions for the storm to grow and send moist air into North Carolina as a cold front moved in.

“We had a number of events like that across the country throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, but in any given area, they were quite uncommon during that time period,� Corey Davis, assistant state climatologist at the North Carolina State Climate Office, the Winston-Salem Journal in October following the Helene’s landfall.

“The difference now is that we’re seeing events of that magnitude, or even worse, happening much more often than they did historically.�