Have you ever wondered how tornadoes and hurricanes happen? Tornadoes and hurricanes are the most dangerous storms on Earth, but they are very interesting (How). Tornadoes are destructive vortexes of very strong rotating winds (Severe). They appear to have a funnel-like shaped cloud that forms beneath a large storm system (Severe). Estimating over a staggering one-thousand, tornadoes happen annually (Severe). A fascinating matter based on tornadoes is that not all tornadoes are visible, but some tornadoes’ wind speeds form a visible rotating column of condensed water. However, a hurricane happens a little bit differently. A hurricane is basically an area of low pressure that usually forms over the tropics (How). About 14 hurricanes form over the Pacific Ocean …show more content…
One thing they have in common is how they are organized into categories. They also both rotate, but some hurricanes rotate clockwise, not counterclockwise (How). All tornadoes rotate counterclockwise (How). They also both form differently. Hurricanes form over water using that warm water and moist air, and tornadoes form on land, and use warm, moist air and dry air to form (How). These storms also vary in size, some hurricanes can be up to several hundred miles wide, and tornadoes usually get no more than a half of a mile wide. Also they vary in how long they last, hurricanes can last for around three weeks, and tornadoes usually don’t last more than an hour. Hurricanes’ wind speeds are less severe than tornadoes’, tornadoes can reach wind speeds over 300 mph, and hurricanes’ wind speeds are usually no more than 180 mph. There are also more tornadoes annually than hurricanes. There are normally eight-hundred to one-thousand tornadoes in the U.S.A, and there is an average of 10 tropical storms form over the Atlantic Ocean per year. Hurricanes and Tornadoes are mostly different from each other but do have some
Hurricanes are formed over tropical waters. These intense storms consist of winds over 74 miles per hour (Ahrens & Sampson, 2011). The storms addressed here are Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Sandy. This paper will explore the contrasts and comparisons between these two horrific storms.
According to Webster’s Dictionary, a tornado is a rotating column of air accompanied by a funnel shaped downward extension of a cumulonimbus cloud and having a vortex several hundred yards in diameter whirling destructively at speeds of up to three hundred miles per hour. There are six classifications of tornadoes, which are measured on what is known as the Fujita Scale. These tornadoes range from an F0 to an F5, which is the most devastating of all. Abnormal warm, humid, and oppressive weather usually precede the formation of a tornado. Records of American tornadoes date back to 1804 and have been known to occur in every state of the United States.
...he tornado. The warning time for a tornado is 13 minutes, from the time it is spotted to the time it hits any populated area. The average is 13 minutes, but that doesn’t always mean that there is a time to warn people before a tornado hits.
Tornadoes are “violent windstorms that take the form of a rotating column of air or vortex that extends downward from a cumulonimbus cloud” as Tarbuck and Lutgens (2012) explain.
What is a tornado? A tornado is “a rapidly rotating vortex or funnel of air extending groundward from a cumulonimbus cloud.” (Haddow et al) Tornadoes produce destructive winds that can destroy everything that comes in its path. Meteorologists use the speed of the winds to classify the strength of tornadoes on the Fujita-Pearson scale. The weakest tornadoes, F0, have wind speeds from 65-85 miles per hour, all the way to an F5 tornado, with winds in excess of 200 miles per hour.
Hurricanes are extremely large area’s of low pressure that are over the ocean in either the North Atlantic ocean, or the eastern North Pacific Ocean. If a hurricane is in the western Pacific Ocean than it is called a typhoon. One in the Indian Ocean is called a cyclone. The danger region of a hurricane is normally in the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic Ocean. The hurricane season is the six month time period from June-November. The peak month of hurricanes is September.
Both hurricanes were both very devastating that caused death, destruction, and impacted many lives. They were ranked highest of being the costliest storms in United States history and the deadliest hurricanes on record. Each hurricane started as a tropical storm leading them both to strengthen throughout the water, but right when they hit landfall both hurricanes decreased in a category 2 and 3
A tornado is a type of vortex. A vortex is essentially a rotating funnel that occurs from downdrafts that pull a medium, such as air or water, downward. Tornadoes are vortexes, and vortexes happen in day to day life, even if you don’t live in Tornado Alley. An everyday example of a vortex is when you pull the drain of a bathtub or sink and a rotating whirlpool occurs. This is a vortex. Tornadoes occur under this same principle, but with air in thunderstorms instead of water in a bathtub.
A hurricane is a low pressure area that forms over a warm ocean in the early summer and in the early fall and. the two biggest factors of causes of a hurricane is water and moist air because the water surface rises and then gets mixed with cooler air to condense and form storm clouds. When a hurricane starts in the Atlantic it starts when a thunderstorm off the west coast of Africa drifts up towards the Atlantic. A minimum distance of at least 500km, from the equator, is needed because it is too humid near the equator for a hurricane to start.so that’s why hurricanes form above the equator it where it’s cooler. Wherever the hurricane forms (on the water) it needs to be at least 80 degrees Fahrenheit (the water), that’s how you get water vapor which, because the water is warm, which powers the hurricane (the water vapor releases latent heat of condensation to power the hurricane).the water vapor acts like a fuel source. Strong winds also play a big role in causing a hurricane because it helps bring up more water vapor. These winds also spiral inwards so the hurricane canes get its spiraling motion. Th...
How are tornadoes created? Tornadoes are the result of an extremely large storm called a supercell. A supercell is a storm that has the presence of a mesocyclone. A mesocyclone possesses a deep, persistently rotating updraft. These storms are also referred to as rotating thunderstorms. There are five classifications of thunderstorms: supercell, squall line, multi-cell, and single-cell.
A hurricane is a tropical storm exceeding 74 mph in wind speeds. It is a low-pressure system which forms when there is a warm & moist environment over the ocean. Hurricanes are named to easily identify them. The first hurricane of the year starts with the letter 'A', the second 'B', and continuing. Hurricanes are only classified as hurricanes when they have wind speeds of 74 mph or more. There are 3 other classifications hurricanes get through to become hurricanes: a tropical disturbance, a tropical depression(0-38 mph), and a tropical storm(38-73 mph).
Hurricanes begin as tropical disturbances in warm ocean waters with temperatures of at least 80 degrees Fahrenheit. These low pressure systems are served by energy from the warm seas. If a storm reaches wind speeds of 38 miles an hour, it is known as a tropical depression. A tropical depression becomes a tropical storm, and is given a name, when its sustained wind speeds top 39 miles an hour. When a storm’s sustained wind speeds reach 74 miles an hour, it becomes a hurricane and earns a category rating of 1 to 5 on the Saffir-Simpson scale.
You cannot see a hurricane all at once, unless you’re looking at it from above or are looking at a picture taken by a satellite, because it is too large. The whirling mass, shaped like a donut, can be two hundred to six hundred miles wide and forty thousand to fifty thousand feet high. Towns can be ripped from the land and small countries entirely devastated by the raging winds.
A hurricane is a type of natural disaster that can be harmful and destructive to anything in its way. Every year five to six hurricanes are formed, damaging and destroying people’s homes, landmarks, and anything in its path (“Hurricane”). Before a hurricane is developed it is known as a tropical storm. To be a tropical storm wind speed must be at least thirty eight miles per hour (“Hurricane”). Once wind speeds reaches seventy four miles an hour it can then be classified as hurricane (“Hurricane”). Large scale storms, like hurricanes have a variety of ways to measure the sev...
There are many types of tornadoes. The average tornado is usually split up into categories based on the strength of the tornado. Most tornadoes, about sixty nine percent 69%, are considered weak, which means they usually last between one minute and ten minutes, have winds less than one hundred and ten miles per hour, and the percent of deaths that occur during these is less than five percent. Strong tornadoes, about twenty nine percent 29%, may last about twenty minutes, have winds between one hundred and ten and two hundred and five miles per hour, and the percent of deaths that are found are about thirty percent of all tornado deaths. The last category for tornadoes is violent ones. With these comes winds greater than two hundred and five miles per hour, they can last about an hour, and have seventy percent of all deaths from tornadoes. Another type of tornado is known as a waterspout. This is a weak tornado that forms over warm water. They are most common along the Gulf Coast and southeastern states. In the western United States, they occur with cold late fall or late winter storms, during a time when you least expect it to develop. They occasionally move inland becoming tornadoes that can cause a great deal of damage and many injuries.