Hurricanes are tropical storms with wind speeds over 74 miles per hour. “Hurricane” is a word meaning “evil spirit and big wind” in the Caribbean Indian language. Three ingredients make a hurricane: warm water, moist air, and converging winds. When winds meet over warm water (at least 80 degrees Fahrenheit) and push in a turning pattern, a hurricane may form. Most Atlantic hurricanes begin on the west coast of Africa and are pushed across the ocean to the east coast of the USA.
The majority of hurricanes begin near the belt of the equator. The leftward-circulating winds from the south meet right-circulating winds from the north due to the Coriolis effect (spin of the earth).
As the winds spin, they pull warmer air from the surface of the water and push it upwards, creating a funnel. The funnel is the eye of the hurricane and is, surprisingly, totally calm. The wall of the eye (or Eye Wall), however, is where the wind is most turbulent as it compresses into a relatively tight space with the spin of the cloud formations. The warm air rising from the ocean brings moisture with it, which forms the clouds.
The space from the center of the eye to the wall around the Eye is calm. From the wall around the Eye outward it is turbulent, but becomes decreasingly so as the area of the storm gets larger. Rain is most intense at the Eye Wall’s immediate area, but most of the rain never touches the surface as it is evaporated back into the mix.
As it spins in this way (left if moving south, right if going north), the hurricane will feed on itself, using the heat of the water below as its fuel source. Hurricanes grow and recirculate much of their energy as they move, creating a snowball effect of larger clouds and heavier winds. Because a crucial element for hurricane growth is warm water, they often lose their energy when they make landfall or enter cooler climates.
Many hurricanes are marked on the map and then find a small area of cooler water and lose their force.
Most hurricanes last only a few days. A low pressure zone in the tropics will be called a tropical depression, which is the beginning of a hurricane. As winds pick up and feed on one another, the storm might begin moving north/south of the equator, increasing in size and intensity. This is a tropical storm, or baby hurricane.
Eventually, if conditions permit, it will continue moving north or south|southwards or northwards] and will have wind speeds over 74 mph. Then it is a hurricane. Generally, the smaller a hurricane is, the more potential damage it will do on landfall. Imagine a ball thrown at your nose, for example. The bigger the ball is, the larger the impact and the less the damage to your nose. A small ball like a baseball or golf ball, hitting your nose directly, will hurt more than a larger one, like a beach ball.
About 100 tropical storms develop every year. About half of those will become hurricanes and about 5 to 10 percent of those hurricanes make landfall near people. Most hurricanes never make the shore, instead running themselves out out at sea.
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