This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flato. A bit later in the hour, a conversation with U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy,

about what's been dubbed the silent epidemic loneliness. And later we're talking ticks and how you can help

scientists study them. But first, we are approaching the peak of the hurricane season when it feels

like there's a new storm every week and we blow through the alphabet and naming them.

Well, this week, Hurricane Nidalia made landfall in Florida as a Category 3 storm.

It left hundreds of thousands of people without power, some without homes.

So what do we know about this hurricane?

And what can we expect from the rest of the hurricane season? Joining me to discuss this story

and other science news of the week is Rachel Feldman, editor at large at Popular Science

based in New York. Welcome back, Rachel. Thanks for having me, Ira. Nice to have you. Okay, you know,

speaking of the hurricane, it seems thankfully it was not as bad as predicted, right? Yeah, that's true,

though it's all relative. I mean, this is a situation where, first of all, the forecasting was

extremely accurate. So, kudos to Noah. Basically, people were able to

plan and there were really good evacuation protocols, again, because just the track of this

hurricane was really well forecasted. And then there are a few things that really came down to chance.

It happened to hit at low tide. So where there was about nine feet of storm surge in where it made

landfall in Florida could have had an additional three feet if it had hit at high tide.

And obviously there's just no predicting that.

So it's really good that we were prepared for what could have been 12 feet of storm surge.

The storm also weakened from a cat four to a cat three.

And of course, while these days storm surge tends to be more of a concern than the wind speed

itself.

...