Hurricane Ivan
Hurricane Ivan of 2004 By: Noah Pierce
Whats a Hurricane?
A hurricane is one of nature's most destructive forces. They can make small islands disappear off the map with floods and destroy entire cities with powerful winds. A hurricane forms off the coast of west Africa in the Atlantic ocean. When it becomes a tropical storm something called the Coriolis Effect happens ; its were a force that makes the winds push the warm water to spin upward in a counterclockwise motion , thus making a hurricane. Hurricanes have to stay in warm water or else they will weaken and die out. When a hurricane travels onto land it can also produce tornadoes.
Categorizing and Naming
Hurricanes are named with the Staffir Simpson Scale. Meteorologists who name the hurricanes use a list with groups of names on it for each year. They use the first name that is in that group for that year then the second and the the third and so on til the next year. A name that is the name of a very destructive hurricane will retire for a long time , for instance the name Ivan will not be used for a long time. For a long time they only named hurricanes with girl names until 1979 , they started using boy names too. Hurricanes are categorized by their wind speeds and how destruction they cause. There are five categories in which a hurricane can be put in. There is category 1,2,3,4 and 5 , 5 being the deadliest.
Hurricane Ivan
Hurricane Ivan was a category 5 hurricane. It formed of the west coast of Africa in a tropical storm on September 5, 2004. It then blew west to south of the United States of America. It the had a huge impact on the islands there. It curved upward going straight over a few islands killing a good bit of people. It then kept going upward until it got to the Gulf of Mexico. By this time Hurricane Ivan had already became a category five hurricane. It made landfall one last time on the state of Alabama. while on its run its eye came within 20 miles of the Grand Canyon. As it came further inland it produced over 100 tornadoes! On Ivan's run it cost an estimated 14.2 billion dollar clean up ; the death toll was around 92 deaths. If I had been old enough I would have tried to help , but if you didn't help and you wish you did you can still help with Hurricane Sandy.
Damage
This is a picture of some of the damage caused by Hurricane Ivan. This picture was taken at Pensacola Beach, Florida.
Satellite
This is a picture of a satellite image of Hurricane Ivan. This was taken by the satellite Modis in the Gulf of Mexico.
Tracking Map
This is the tracking map of Hurricane Ivan. This was the rout that Ivan took.