The vagaries of nature might seem mysterious but even natural events such as deluges, hurricanes, global warming and climate change have explanations based on changes in temperatures, wind direction, velocity, humidity and precipitation. High temperatures lead to high level of evaporation of water and thus increase in humidity. For example, there no doubt that deforestation and concretisation lead to increase in temperature. Hot areas are usually associated with low pressure and cold areas with higher pressure. So if you want to predict wind direction, then velocity of wind and its direction is always from high pressure zones to low pressure zones. Extreme differences in pressure zones could indicate a very strong velocity wind.
Areas which are heavily forested could be cooler. The higher the concentration of trees in a bigger area could lead to greater precipitation and thus flooding if no measures are in place to drain out the heavy rainfall. In India, Assam is an example of heavily forested area having consistently high rainfall. In fact, Cherrapunji in Assam was once the wettest place on earth. Rain forests like the Amazon which is heavily forested in another example.
But why did Hurricane Harvey lash Houston, Texas. From pictures seen, the area looks very sparsely green and it is possible that high temperature led to a very low pressure being formed which could have led to the fact that rain-bearing clouds rushed in from a higher pressure area and caused the deluge. The rain-bearing clouds from surrounding areas could have led to Hurricane Harvey having wreaked havoc in Houston, Texas. So it is very significant that man-made causes could have led to nature having lashed out at Houston, Texas, due to the high degree of pressure difference. On the contrary, is it possible that man could exert control on nature by judicious balance of tree-plantation and selective but strict monitoring of industrialisation as well as decrease of fossil fuels use by way of transportation. Does this make sense?
Elvidio Miranda, via email
