Hurricane season threatens the eastern and gulf shorelines of the United States, Mexico, as well as the Caribbean each year between June 1 and November 30.  In other areas on the planet, the identical kinds of storms are usually known as typhoons or cyclones.  Hurricanes inflict damage every time they strike and they can kill lots of people and result in billions of dollars in damage to property whenever they hit heavily populated regions.

In accordance with the National Hurricane Center, a hurricane is actually a tropical cyclone occurring in the Atlantic Ocean.  “Tropical cyclone” is a common term used for low-pressure systems that create in the tropics.  Tropical cyclones with highest sustained surface winds of below 17 meters per second are known as tropical depressions.  When the tropical cyclone grows to winds that is at least 17 meters per second, they’re called a tropical storm and assigned a name.  Should the winds achieve 33 meters per second, it’s then termed a hurricane.

Hurricanes are defined by the following characteristics.  They’re tropical, which means they are developed in tropical parts of the ocean close to the Equator.  They’re cyclonic, so that their winds swirl around a central eye.  The wind direction is counterclockwise, or west to east, inside the Northern Hemisphere.  The wind direction within the Southern Hemisphere is clockwise, or east to west.  Hurricanes are low-pressure systems since the eye of the hurricane is actually a low-pressure area.  The lowest barometric pressures ever registered have constantly occurred inside hurricanes.  Additionally, the winds swirling all over the center of the storm possesses a sustained speed that is at least 74 miles per hour.

Hurricanes form in tropical areas where there is warm water, generally no less than 80 degrees Fahrenheit and 27 degrees Celsius, damp air and converging equatorial winds.  Most Atlantic hurricanes start from the western shoreline of Africa and start out as thunderstorms that transfer across the warm and tropical ocean waters.  A thunderstorm gets to hurricane status in three phases.  A tropical depression has swirling clouds and rain with wind speeds of under 38 miles per hour.  A tropical storm has wind speeds of 39 to 73 miles per hour and a hurricane has wind speeds more than 74 miles per hour.  Usually it takes between several hours to a few days for a thunderstorm to build up into a hurricane.  While the whole process of hurricane creation isn’t completely understood, three events have to happen for a hurricane to form.  A continuous evaporation and condensation cycle of hot and damp ocean air should occur.  Patterns of wind characterized by converging winds at the surface area and powerful, uniform-speed winds at higher altitudes also need to occur.  Finally, a difference in air pressure, called pressure gradient, must occur between the surface and the high altitude.

Hot and wet air from the ocean surface starts to increase rapidly.  Since this hot air rises, its water vapor condenses to make droplets of rain and storm clouds.  The condensation releases heat generally known as latent heat of condensation.  This latent heat warms up the cool atmosphere, which causes it to increase.  This rising air is replaced by extra warm and damp air from the sea below.  The cycle continues, drawing more hot and moist air into the producing storm and continuously shifting heat from the surface to the atmosphere.

The exchange of heat from the surface results in a pattern of wind that moves around a center.  High-pressure air in the higher atmosphere above the storm’s center also removes heat from the rising air, which further pushes the air cycle along with the hurricane’s progress.  As high-pressure air is sucked into the low-pressure center of the hurricane, wind speeds increase.  When a hurricane forms, it has three main parts, which include the eye, the eye wall, and rain bands.  Rain bands are bands of thunderstorms circulating to the outside from the eye which are part of the evaporation and condensation cycle that feeds the hurricane.

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