Once a hurricane makes landfall its energy decreases and the hurricane weakens. Energy released as the air rises and condenses sustains the hurricane as it moves over the ocean. The warmer the water, the more energy to fuel the hurricane, and the stronger it becomes. The low-pressure base acts like a vacuum that sucks more warm, moist air into the spiral.įor a storm to gain enough energy to develop into a hurricane, the temperature of surface waters needs to rise above 26⁰ C (79⁰ F). As moist air rises, it releases heat, cools down, and condenses into windy bands of clouds and thunderstorms. Below this rising air mass, an area of low pressure forms. Once triggered, the Earth’s rotation causes the warm, moist air at the ocean surface to rise in a spiral pattern. ![]() Hurricanes begin over the ocean as tropical storms triggered by a disturbance in the atmosphere. Warm water induces evaporation, causing more water vapor to rise from the ocean surface into the atmosphere. The exact combination of conditions needed for hurricanes to form is still poorly understood, but one key factor is well documented: warm ocean water. It consists of five categories, based on wind strength: 1 is the weakest and 5 is strongest, with winds exceeding 251 kilometers per hour (156 mph). Scientists classify the strength of a hurricane using a system developed in the 1970s called the Saffir-Simpson Scale. These rain bands, as they’re known, can stretch for hundreds of miles and sometimes contain tornadoes. Spiral bands of clouds, rain, and more thunderstorms extend out from the eye wall like a pinwheel on top of a rotating funnel. The eye is surrounded by the much more active eye wall, a ring of thunderstorms where the hurricane’s winds are the strongest and rains are the heaviest. Its center is a cloud-free, relatively calm area called the eye. ![]() They are known as typhoons in the western Pacific and cyclones in the Indian Ocean. They usually form between June 1 and November 30 in the Atlantic Ocean but can develop in other oceans as well. Hurricanes are large rotating tropical storms with winds in excess of 119 kilometers per hour (74 mph).
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