This is an informative essay about Hurricanes. You will learn why and how it occurs. Where they most often occur. What its effect are. How scientists can predict of keep us safe from them. What warning systems are used and what are the benefits and limitations are. And if there are other issues that cause problems as well. Such as if the country cannot afford good and safe warning systems, etc.
Hurricanes are large topical storms with heavy winds. The winds that they create are so powerful they can go faster than a cheetah (the worlds fastest animals) at 119 kilometers per hour (74 miles per hour). After a hurricane there is almost always damage, they destroy building and can sometimes even rip a tree from its roots. They form over warm ocean waters. The water has to be above 26 Celsius (79 Fahrenheit) to form. They can get very strong that the hurricanes can hit land, but they always form over the ocean. Storm surges happen when a hurricane hits land. What happens when it does is it pushed a lot of water onto the land. The water that is pushed onto the land is called a storm surge. Floods are caused by storm surges and topical rain falling. We cannot predict a hurricane before it is formed, but since if forms on the ocean we know about it. So once it is formed they predict where it will go and how strong it will be. Once they know where it will go and how strong it is people can then make decisions. Based on how strong it is and how close it is to where they live.That is what helps them prepare. A hurricane is divided into parts. There is an eye which is in the center of the storm. The winds in this part are usually fairly lights. The skies are a little bit cloudy and sometimes they can be completely clear. The second part is the eye wall, it is where the winds are the strongest and the rain fall is the heaviest. The last part of a hurricane is the rain bands. I think they are the most dangerous. They are bands of clouds and rain. They go out far from the eye wall and they stretch long distances. They contain thunderstorms and sometimes tornadoes.
A long time ago people used to think Hurricanes formed because "the gods" were angry at them. Well now we have a scientific reason for why they form, and no, they do not have anything to do with any gods. They always form in tropical regions, you'll never find one out in the desert. The reason they only form in tropical climate is because they are the only regions where they have all the things needed to form. Hurricanes need high humidity with moist air, light winds, warm water, and hot surface temperatures. They usually develop in the Summer and in the earl Fall. The Atlantic hurricanes usually form on the coast of Africa however in the northern hemisphere the hurricane season is from June through November. Before a hurricane occurs there a signs, the first is that a lot of thunderstorm over any tropical ocean will appear. Then the re occurrence of thunderstorms will break away and becomes more organized. The time is very different it can be from a few hours to a few days for a thunderstorm to become a hurricane. There are three things that have to happen before it can becomes a hurricane. There must be a constant evaporation and condensation cycle and wind patters that are set apart by uniting winds and there had to be a difference in the air pressure between the surface at sea level and high altitude.
Typhoons and Hurricanes can only develop on top of a large basin of warm water which are usually ocean or seas. You don't get them on rivers or lakes. The reason they don't form over lakes and rivers and they do over oceans is because to form they need to have a large amount of energy, which the ocean supplies. The ocean also supplies heat and that allows the water to evaporate. Also they can occur quit a few degrees away from the equator because of the Coriolis effect is too weak at the actual equtor to cause a spin for the hurricane.
They can also cause disasters such a tidal flooding and storm surges. These two are the most damaging and prominent effects of a hurricane. I have already said that a storm sure is the rising wall of water that comes ashore with a land falling hurricane. However it is also responsible for ninety percent of all the deaths that are caused by hurricanes. High winds are however one of the most important effects of a hurricane because they determine how powerful the storm is and how much damage it will cause. Hurricane winds can reach about 200 miles per hour. Tornadoes are also an effect of hurricanes but are probably the least though of one and they do occur the least, but they still do occur. They occur when an incredibly large amounts of energy are created and then the hurricane makes a landfall. Most of the tornadoes that happen in hurricanes are not that strong. Then lastly there is heavy rain and flooding. After a hurricane makes landfall and when their winds then decrease, huge amounts of rainfall become a major factor and they can cause significant flooding.
Even though tropical cyclones can take away many lived it also destroys property. They can be important events to places that need rain in dry regions. The hurricanes in the eastern north Pacific can sometimes provide moist to the Southwest of America and pasrt of western Mexico. Also Japan recieves more than half of its rainfall from typhoons yearly. But tropical cyclones can damage places where people live very badly. When it destroys settlement then money has to be used to rebuild things. For example. Hurricane Camille occurred on the Gulf Coast and the damage of the hurricane forced many things to be rebuilt.
And as you know hurricanes are names after they occur (ex. Hurricane Katrina). There is a reason they name them. It is because there can be more than one hurricane at a time. Names make it easier to keep track of all the ones that do occur. However the storm is only given a name if it becomes a tropical storm. The name stays if it becomes a hurricane. Every year tropical storms are given names in alphabetical order. They come from a list of names that are specific for the year. There are six lists of names. The lists get reused every six years. If a storm does enough damage sometimes its name is taken off the list. Then its replaced by a new name that then starts with the same letter.
These are the names during the year of 2012: Alberto, Beryl, Chris, Debby,
Ernesto, Florence, Gordon, Helene, Isaac, Joyce, Kirk, Leslie, Michael, Nadine,
Oscar, Patty, Rafael, Sandy, Tony, Valerie, William
Hurricanes are studied by NASA in many ways. They take pictures with satellites from outer space. The pictures that are taken are shown on television to help people understand its path. They also get put onto the internet. They also use instruments to measure ocean and cloud temperatures. They also have more instruments to measure the height of the cloud and how fast the falling of the rain is. And then there are those instruments who measure the speed and direction of the winds. The scientists also use the data and facts from the satellites to learn more about hurricanes. The data they collect helps them to understand how the hurricanes develop and how they get stronger and stronger. The data also helps forecasters to predict the path of the hurricane and its strength. This is a way of informing and warning the public people about the hurricanes that will occur. This way people have time to prepare for the up coming natural disaster. What is also very interesting is that dust storms from Africa can affect hurricanes. NASA has two satellites that have a machine to help the scientists study how the dust affects the hurricanes. NASA also lets some planes fly in hurricanes. Can you believe that they do that?!? There are tools on the plane that help collect detail from the storm. However, obviously, some parts of the hurricane are too dangerous to fly into. For the "too dangerous" part scientist study them they use airplanes that collect the data without putting the people inside the actual plane. NASA also does other special projects that help them and society learn about hurricanes. All these different projects require different machines. Some projects are done on land, some on the ground and some through air planes
Bibliography:
"HURRICANES
AND TROPICAL STORMS." NOAA. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 June 2012.
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"Hurricane Facts." The Weather Around Us. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 June 2012.
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"Tropical cyclone." Wikipedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 June 2012.
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"What Are Hurricanes." What Are Hurricanes. Web. 03 June 2012. <http://www.cotf.edu
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Excellent information and well written essay. Good bibliography citing the sources you used. The warning systems were explained well too.
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