Hakai Magazine has published an article about research that Grace Casselberry of the University of Massachusetts Amherst has been doing about the reaction of sharks to hurricanes. It seems that they sense the changes in atmospheric pressure that precede these weather events, and head for the safety of deep water.

During Hurricane Maria in 2017, researchers at the Buck Island Reef National Monument, off Saint Croix are unable to retrieve their acoustic receivers from the sea bed before the storm arrived. Hence they were able to collect data from the tagged tiger, lemon, nurse, and Caribbean reef sharks during the storm.

About two hours before the onset of the storm, nine of the sharks headed for deep water. This mirrors behavior described in earlier research carried out with blacktip sharks during tropical storm Gabrielle.