Informative Details of the Hurricanes

Informative Details of the Hurricanes

What are hurricanes?

Hurricane is a displacement of high intensity air currents caused by low pressures and a process of evaporation at sea.

Known by different names such as typhoons or cyclones, depending on where they are produced. The scientific term for all these storms is tropical cyclone. Only tropical cyclones that form over the Atlantic Ocean and the eastern Pacific Ocean are called hurricanes.

How is a tropical cyclone formed?

Tropical cyclones are like giant engines that use hot, humid air as fuel. That's why they form only on oceans of warm water, near the Equator.

When the warm, humid air rises and cools, the water that rises in the form of vapor forms clouds. The whole system of clouds and air revolves and grows, fed by the heat of the ocean and the water that evaporates from the surface. And depending on where these storms form, they will turn in one direction or another: The storms that form north of the equator turn counterclockwise; the storms to the south, turn in the sense of the hands of the clock.

As the storm system rotates faster and faster, an eye forms in the center. In the eye everything is very calm and clear, with a very low air pressure.

How many types of tropical cyclones are there?

Depending on the speed at which tropical cyclones occur can be of three types:

• Tropical depression: when it comes to winds whose maximum speed at sea level is up to 62 km / h.
• Tropical storm: it is a hot core system whose winds reach between 63 and 117 km / h.
• Hurricane: hot-core tropical cyclone that reaches a speed at sea level of 118 km / h and above.

How are hurricanes measured?

Hurricanes are measured by category, according to a scale called Saffir-Simpson (developed in 1969 by civil engineer Herbert Saffir and the director of the National Hurricane Center), which classifies the storm, depending on the intensity of the wind, the effects of waves and its capacity to generate floods.

• Category 1: Winds 118 - 153 km / h
• Category 2: Winds of 154 - 177 km / h
• Category 3: Winds of 178 -209 km / h
• Category 4: Winds of 210 -250 km / h
• Category 5: Winds greater than 250 km / h

What happens when they arrive on Earth?

They weaken when they touch land, because they can no longer feed on energy from temperate oceans. However, they often move far inland causing much damage from rain and wind before disappearing completely.