How Do Hurricanes Occur?

When someone talks about Hurricanes, what do you think of? Or which Hurricane comes to mind when the word is brought up? For those in New Orleans would immediately think of Hurricane Katrina and the destructive force it brought with it and the destruction it made from the Bahamas and Cuba through much of the southeastern United States. For everyone though they think of the storms that start in the Atlantic Ocean and find their way to the southern part of the United States, into Mexico or the dozens of tropical islands just south of Florida. Those who have studied Meteorology know that there are many names for Hurricanes and that they don’t only occur in the Atlantic Ocean going towards the U.S. and Mexico. They are called Typhoons in the Pacific and they travel towards southern Japan, India, Taiwan, and the Philippines among others in that region. Then there are Cyclones that can reach New Zealand, the northern half of Australia, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, and go as far as Madagascar and eastern Africa. These are the three names for Hurricanes that occur in different regions of the world. For us in America though we know them as Hurricanes and this is how they occur.

It all starts between the 23.5 degrees north of the equator and 23.5 degrees south of the equator. They do no go outside of these limitations but when they form inside them they can become very destructive and frightening. Those in New Orleans and the surrounding cities and states near Louisiana know very well what the forces of Hurricanes can do to a city. Hurricanes are intense storms whose origins come from the tropics that can sustain winds that are 74 miles per hour for long periods of time and can reach much higher winds also. They start to occur when the weather is perfect, surface air pressure will be low, light winds, high humidity, water temperature in a vast area is 80 degrees Fahrenheit or warmer.

The conditions for Hurricanes to occur can sometimes start somewhere near the Bahamas but most of the time the conditions are right just off the most western edge of the African continent. They need to have a trigger to be able to form because Hurricanes can’t form spontaneously.  Hurricanes don’t form right away when they are triggered. When Hurricanes start to form, it is only after they started as a tropical storm. Once the tropical storm has started and start to gain more speed and more destructive forces then Hurricanes start to form. If there is a long stretch of warm water, like a couple hundred miles, that is where the tropical storms will not only become a hurricane but also it can become more destructive along the lines of what happened in 2005 with Hurricane Katrina.

How they occur over a period of time is that they will formally start as a tropical disturbance such as a mass of thunderstorms with a little wind circulation. When the winds start to reach of 20 to 34 knots it will become a tropical depression. The stage of tropical storm occurs when the winds are between 35 and 64 knots. Once the speeds of the winds exceed 64 knots or 74 miles per hour then the tropical storm becomes classified as a hurricane and then it will get its name. Once it hits a patch of colder water then the hurricane will become weaker but it is hard to predict when that happens because its to dangerous to get too close to the eye of the hurricane. The eye in a hurricane is the very middle of the hurricane where you can see right through the hurricane from top to bottom.

At first Hurricanes were only named by where they were according to their longitude and latitude coordinates. Then during World War II they were starting to be named like a company of men in the army such as Able or Baker with each letter in the alphabet. Then 1953 to 1977 they were only female names from A-Z. Starting 1978 though hurricanes started being named men’s names also. They were not named only after English names, but also after French and Spanish names also. If there are more tropical storms than letters in the alphabet they start to be named after the Greek alphabet, such as Alpha, Gamma, and Omega.