Hurricane: Characteristics, Training, Curiosities

Hurricane: Characteristics, Training, Curiosities

What are hurricanes?

Hurricanes, also called typhoons in some places, is a climate phenomenon that corresponds to the huge tropical storms that occur more frequently in the northern hemisphere, without ruling out the possibility of occurring in the southern hemisphere, due to the alterations caused by heatingglobal.

Hurricane formation

Hurricanes are formed in oceanic regions where the temperature exceeds 27º C. Ocean water begins to evaporate and accumulate in the form of clouds in the lowest layer of the atmosphere. This creates a layer of low atmospheric pressure, causing the air to begin to rise faster and faster and that the cold air of the upper layer begins to descend through the center of the storm. So, the winds in the opposite direction make the storm begin to turn. As the hurricane moves over the sea, more water evaporates, feeding the hurricane. When the hurricane reaches some continent, which is colder and dry, it is dissipated, but leaving devastating traces.Hurricanes are formed by an eye, a kind of hole in the middle of the hurricane where cold air can reach 20 km in diameter. The so -called eye walls are regions where hot air rises through a circular movement around the eye giving the hurricane its characteristic appearance and where the humidity of the storm is concentrated.

Characteristics of Hurricanes

Generally hurricanes occur at the end of summer and early fall.

This phenomenon originates from abrupt alterations of the temperature of the oceans and also from the continental areas. Due to the aggressiveness of the winds, in their route it causes material destruction of houses, bridges, industries, hospitals and also human victims, leaving thousands of wounded, homeless and sometimes deaths.Hurricanes have a speed greater than 200 km/h. They are common in the Caribbean Sea and the United States, measuring 200 to 400 km in diameter.Hurricanes receive different names by meteorologists according to their intensity. This phenomenon is classified from two criteria: the speed of winds and the degree of destruction that cause. In addition to that, the climatic phenomenon according to its classification is divided into five levels or categories called Saffir-Simpson, from level three already occur.

Curiosities

The United States is the country that coexists the most with this type of phenomenon. In the first decades of the twentieth century, in the city of Galveston, Texas, a hurricane left a total of eight thousand people killed.A curiosity with respect to hurricanes is that they usually turn in a sense in the part of the northern hemisphere (antihorary sense) and in another sense in the part of the southern hemisphere (time sense).