The past week has been particularly active for tropical storms around North America, with Hurricane Hilary bringing significant winds and flooding along the west coast and further inland.
Several landlocked states including Nevada and Idaho, which rarely see significant precipitation, had their highest rainfall totals from a tropical storm since 1900.
Nevada, which is the driest state in the US, and is primarily made up of a desert ecosystem, had 9.2 inches (234mm) of rain from the remnants of Hilary. A normal amount of rainfall for Nevada in an average year is 10.3 inches (262mm).
Hilary was unusual in that it tracked along the Pacific coast, keeping its intensity before heading inland. There have been several other tropical storms in the past week that have taken more normal tracks, milling around in the tropical Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico.
Tropical Storm Harold pushed through the Gulf and made landfall in Texas on 22 August with sustained winds of 50mph before weakening fairly rapidly in the following hours.
However, just across the Gulf, Storm Franklin made landfall in Hispaniola in the Caribbean a day later. The storm led to at least one death in the Dominican Republic and hundreds were displaced from their homes. Franklin is currently making its way northwards and forecast to skim past Bermuda, and could intensify further into a hurricane this weekend.
Storms Emily and Gert have also formed, but tended to stay away from any major landmasses. This is in line with the usual time for peak tropical storm activity, but also likely to have been affected by the widely warm sea surface temperatures (SSTs) across much of the globe this month, and this year.
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According to NOAA data, which incorporates observations from satellites to ships and buoys, global SSTs have been above any previous monthly records since March. July saw a record for the highest SST monthly anomaly of any month on record, and August is following a similar trend.
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