Photo by Joe Raedle / Getty Images For the third time in 13 months, a hurricane is churning through the Gulf of Mexico on a collision course with Florida’s northwest coast, threatening a region still recovering from recent extreme weather with historic storm surge and dangerous winds stretching across hundreds of miles. But Hurricane Helene, which follows last year’s Hurricane Idalia and last month’s Hurricane Debby , is no ordinary storm, even by Florida’s standards. Like other high-profile climate-fueled storms of the last few years, it’s expected to undergo what meteorologists call “rapid intensification,” gaining strength at a phenomenal pace as it passes through the exceptionally warm waters of the Gulf. As a result, it’s poised to make landfall as a Category 3 or 4 storm just days after first forming in the Caribbean. It has also ballooned to become one of the widest storms on record, which will allow it to bring life-threatening winds and rain as far inland as Tennessee. Hope Webb, a real estate broker who lives in a beachfront area of the state’s sparsely populated Big Bend region, said on Thursday that she was hunkering down and hoping for the best as the storm was projected to make landfall that evening. “I am a lifelong resident of this area,” she told Grist. “I’ve weathered many a storm. I have faith God has his arms around us. But this storm is definitely testing our strength.” Three factors conspired to make Helene a particularly potent storm. Like any hurricane, its fuel is warm ocean water, which injects energy into the atmosphere as it evaporates. As Helene moved through the Caribbean Sea, it fed on exceptionally warm ocean temperatures made at least 300 times more likely by climate change , according to experts. As it continued its march […]