rico and i think a lot of people were in the same boat i mean you had everybody leaving from the the v.d.i. people leaving from the u.s. we i. but i'm going to be in miami that widespread flooding is now a concern as are mudslides in the islands mountainous regions the governor of puerto rico has now put a curfew in place as a rescue and recovery operation is launched with little communication it's hard to assess the damage but it may be this island's coastal communities and rural communities that took the worst of the damage as hurricane maria leads a path of destruction across puerto rico the recovery of this u.s. territory already dealing with so many challenges could be a long one and gallacher al-jazeera san juan puerto rico well sean sublette is a meteorologist working with climate central in princeton in the u.s. he says there are several factors that influence the strength of hurricanes. there are a couple other things at play you need to have at least a little bit of moisture in the in the middle parts of the atmosphere and the winds throughout the depth of the atmosphere need to

rico and i think a lot of people were in the same boat i mean you had everybody leaving from the the v.d.i. people leaving from the u.s. we i. but i'm going to be. widespread flooding is now a concern as are mudslides in the islands mountainous regions the governor of puerto rico has now put a curfew in place as a rescue and recovery operation is launched with little communication it's hard to assess the damage but it may be this island's coastal communities and rural communities that took the worst of the damage as hurricane maria leaves a path of destruction across puerto rico the recovery in this u.s. territory already dealing with so many challenges could be a long one. joining us now from zurich is peter's a million peter is an expert in storms and hurricanes and heads the atmospheric perils department with zurich based reinsurance company swiss re what a great name for a department you'd be the man to ask then are weather related catastrophes on the increase right now thanks very much first of all for having me on the show yes this is a question that we are confronted with very often