What Causes Hurricanes Dangerous?

What causes Hurricanes?

The oversimplified answer: Warm ocean water plus the Earth's eastward rotation. 

Meteorologist Jeff Masters said " They're heat engines, they take heat from the oceans and convert it to the energy of their winds. They're taking thermal energy and making mechanical energy out of it". 

The natural engines that is a hurricane is fueled by by warm and moist air, the storms move heat from the ocean surface into Earth's atmosphere, they can travel thousands of miles from the tropics toward the Earth's poles. 

According to NOAA's National Hurricane Center, the average hurricane eye-the still where pressure is lowest and air temperature is highest-stretchs 20 to 30 miles across, with some even growing as large as 120 miles wide. 

The

strongest storms, equivalent to Category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson scale, have substained winds up to 155 miles an hour. 

Why Are Hurricanes Dangerous?

While hurricanes are categorized based on their wind speeds, wind isn't typically the most dangerous part of the storms. " It's the storm surge" said Kerry Emanuel, an atmospheric scientist at MIT, the storm surge is the bulge of water built up in front of a cyclone or hurricane courtesy of its winds. 

It's the number one killer in hurricanes, Emanuel explain. "That's what killed people in Katrina, its what killed people in Sandy and in Haiyan" 

Emanuel likened a storm surge to a tsunami, one just happens to be caused by earthquakes (tsunami), while others are generated by hurricanes. 

Flash flooding caused by intense rains is also a major killer, Emanuel said. "In 1998 Hurricane Mitch killed 19,325 people and it was all from flash flooding". Then comes the wind that blows around debris, Hurrricane Andrew in 1992 is an example. "It didn't really cause much of a storm surge,"the atmospheric  scientist said, "but it did blow a lot of buildings down". 

Climate change will likely increase the frequency of "the high-end hurricanes," Emanuel said. And those powerful storms have the potential to produce heavy rain, flooding, and strong storm surges. 

Is that a Hurricane or a

Cyclone?

What's the difference between hurricanes, cyclones, and typhoons? Actually, they're all the same weather phenomenon. Scientists just call these storms different things depending on where they occur. 

In the Atlantic and northern Pacific, these storms are called hurricanes. In the northwestern Pacific, the same storms are called typhoons, in the southwestern Indian Ocean they're called tropical cyclone. 

To be classified as a hurricane, typhoon, or cyclone, a storm must reach wind speeds of at least 74 miles an hour. If a hurricane's wind reaches speeds of 111 miles an hour, it is upgraded to a "intense hurricane". 

If a typhoon hits 150 miles an hour-as Usagi did in 2013-then it becomes a "super typhoon". While the Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 thorough November 30, the typhoon and cyclone seasons follow slightly different patterns. 

In the northeastern Pacific, the official season runs from May 15 to November 30. In the northwestern Pacific, typhoons are most common from late June through December. And northern Indian ocean sees cyclones from April to December. 
In the end hurricanes are very deadly they can cause heavy amounts of rain, flash flooding, storm surges, and wind damage. They are to be taken very seriously. 

-Zoe Mederos