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October 30, 2025<\/p>\n
3 min read<\/p>\n
Hurricane Melissa Was So Strong That It Shook the Earth Hundreds of Miles Away<\/p>\n
Seismometers picked up the ferocious winds and waves of Hurricane Melissa, showing how the tools can be used to better understand storms today and those from the past<\/p>\n
By Robin George Andrews edited by Andrea Thompson<\/span><\/p>\n Seismograms from October 25 (left) to October 28 (right) that show the seismic waves picked up by a seismograph in Jamaica.<\/p>\n Station Monitor\/SAGE\/Earthscope Consortium (CC BY 4.0)<\/p>\n Hurricane Melissa will go down as one of the worst hurricanes ever in the Atlantic Ocean, with the hurricane reaching a strength that only a handful of storms have achieved in recorded history. Melissa was so powerful\u2014with astounding 185-mile-per-hour peak winds\u2014that it literally made the ground tremble hundreds of miles away in Florida, where its march across the ocean was picked up on seismometers, instruments designed to detect earthquakes.<\/p>\n Though plenty of intense storms have shown up on these sensors before, the recordings underscore the destructive force of the Melissa, a Category 5 hurricane that devastated parts of Jamaica, Cuba and the Bahamas. They also highlight how a tool that is typically used for geological purposes can improve our understanding of one Earth\u2019s most ferocious weather phenomena\u2014in particular, by opening a window into the hurricanes that raged before satellites and plane reconnaissance was possible.<\/p>\n Despite seismic waves being readily associated with fault movements and their tremors, \u201cseismometers aren\u2019t just used for earthquakes,\u201d says seismologist and earthquake geologist Wendy Bohon, whose organizational affiliation can\u2019t currently be given because of the ongoing shutdown of the federal government. \u201cSeismometers detect anything that puts energy into the ground. That could be Taylor Swift concerts; that could be construction; that could be people walking around seismometers.\u201d Landslides, avalanches, asteroid impacts, volcanic eruptions and clandestine nuclear weapons explosions all appear as curious squiggles in the tools\u2019 output because they all generate seismic waves.<\/p>\n If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.<\/p>\n Hurricanes and typhoons are no exception, and they wobble Earth\u2019s crust in two different ways. The first is \u201cdue to the wind vibrating trees, telegraph poles, fenceposts, etcetera, which then couples into the ground as a seismic wave,\u201d says Stephen Hicks, a seismologist at University College London.<\/p>\n The second, more major component comes from the storms jostling the ocean itself. \u201cAs waves go up and down, they drum on the ocean floor,\u201d Bohon says. Sometimes this percussive action is represented on seismometers by subtle peaks and troughs. Hurricane Melissa ominously registered on Jamaica\u2019s seismometers as eerily obvious serrated teeth in the days leading up to landfall. \u201cIt makes your heart drop a little bit because you recognize the ferocity of the storm,\u201d Bohon says.<\/p>\n Hurricanes and typhoons are tracked and studied relatively easily in real time: barometers and daring \u201cHurricane Hunter\u201d pilots record changes in air pressure, oceanic sensors monitor changing temperatures, and satellites can build three-dimensional pictures of these maelstroms. Seismometers, which run continuously and can be found all over the world, can also be used to track the trajectory of the hurricane, says Andreas Fichtner, a seismologist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich.<\/p>\n Download the video<\/p>\n Although helpful in the here and now, this is particularly useful for understanding hurricanes in the somewhat more antiquated past\u2014back when aerial surveys and satellite sleuthing weren\u2019t options. \u201cIn the presatellite era, we already had a seismic network on the surface of the Earth,\u201d Fichtner says. It\u2019s not anywhere near as dense as it is today, but it\u2019s still sufficient for hurricane researchers hoping to rewind time so they can find out where tropical cyclones used to be born and where the storms previously dissolved away.<\/p>\n This multidecadal seismic soundtrack also shows potential in determining the intensities of past hurricanes. Storm-generated seismic waves are effectively recording changes in ocean wave height. That means scientists could calibrate the cacophony of today\u2019s hurricanes with their intensity and then use what\u2019s preserved in old seismic catalogs to see if cyclones have become stronger over time.<\/p>\n As sea-surface temperatures have risen dramatically with global warming, climate models have predicted that, over the coming years, hurricanes will get stronger, bringing higher wind speeds, greater rainfall and more vigorous storm surges to bear on anyone in their paths. There are some indications that this effect is already in play. And if, as recent research suggests, seismometers can determine the strength of tropical storms that existed long ago, our understanding of this trend will undoubtedly improve.<\/p>\n The fact that seismometers can be used in an unconventional way to study our rapidly changing world is fascinating, Bohon says. But seeing increasingly savage storms such as Melissa appear on these sensors is also \u201cfrightening and heartbreaking,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n If you enjoyed this article, I\u2019d like to ask for your support. Scientific American<\/span> has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in that two-century history.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been a Scientific American<\/span> subscriber since I was 12 years old, and it helped shape the way I look at the world. SciAm <\/span>always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does that for you, too.<\/p>\n If you subscribe to Scientific American<\/span>, you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.<\/p>\n In return, you get essential news, captivating podcasts, brilliant infographics, can’t-miss newsletters, must-watch videos, challenging games, and the science world’s best writing and reporting. You can even gift someone a subscription.<\/p>\n There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science matters. I hope you\u2019ll support us in that mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" October 30, 2025 3 min read Hurricane Melissa Was So Strong That It Shook the Earth Hundreds of Miles Away Seismometers picked up the ferocious winds and waves of Hurricane Melissa, showing how the tools can be used to better understand storms today and those from the past By Robin George Andrews edited by Andrea<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31593,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[2417,1022,769,18376,9029,1664,18375],"class_list":{"0":"post-31592","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-earthquake","9":"tag-historic","10":"tag-hurricane","11":"tag-melissas","12":"tag-picked","13":"tag-power","14":"tag-seismometers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}On supporting science journalism<\/h2>\n
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