Hurricanes
By: Isaiah Dodson
Hurricanes
When you turn on the weather Channel are you confused? How about when he says that a hurricane was a category 5 or there's a typhoon rolling in from the Western pacific ocean. Well your in luck because I am here to show you a lot of cool and interesting facts about hurricanes, Typhoons and tropical cyclones.
Formation and Strength
Have you ever wondered how hurricanes form and maintain their awesome and powerful strength? First we will talk about how Hurricanes form which is shown in in the caption to the right. First the wind has to be blowing in the same direction and speed. Also the air pressure has to be low so the wind can force the warm air up from the ocean and the water has to be 80 degrees Fahrenheit so the air being forced up is warm. Then the Coriolis effect is needed to make the spin on the hurricane. when all that happens at just the right moment a hurricane has been formed. Now we will talk about once a hurricane is formed how it maintains its strength. A hurricane gets its strength from the warm ocean water below it. Evaporation from the warm water acts like a thermos and keeps the air warm. Also a Hurricane has to have low air pressure to. That's how a hurricane maintains its strength. You might be wondering why you see a hurricane categorized a 4 but when it hits land its only a category 2 or maybe a 3 if your lucky. The reason why is because when a hurricane makes landfall (or hits land) it dose not have the resources it needs to maintain its strength. That's basically all you need to know about how a hurricane forms and maintains its strength.
Names and Catagories
Have you ever wondered haw hurricanes get there funny names or how hurricanes are categorized? The answer for naming them starts out here. In 1950 somebody kept getting confused with hurricanes and came up with the idea of naming Tropical cyclones (hurricanes but occur in a different area) using the alphabet Then the rest of the world caught on including America. But America for some reason only used female names (or girl names). But then in 1973 The U.S Berea Weather system caught on and started using male names. Now there are six lists of names each uses the alphabet and male and female names. Not only are hurricanes named they are also categorized. Hurricanes are categorized by the Simpson scale which uses wind speed, air pressure storm surge and damage to categorize hurricanes. Like a category 1 has winds from 74 to 95 mph. A category 2 has to have winds 96 to 110 mph. A 3 has to have winds up to 111 to 130 mph. A 4 has to have winds from 131 to 155. Then comes the big 5 which can have winds over 155 mph and this is the most dangerous hurricane there is. In the picture to your left you will see the scale of the hurricane as it travels. This scale is still use today to categorize hurricanes. That is how you categorize and name hurricanes.
Hurricane Ike
This is sort of a quiz to see how much you ave learned about hurricanes in my article. Hurricane Ike as many of you know was one of the most deadliest and costliest hurricanes ever to hit land. Ike cost a total 1.1 billion dollars as you can see in the picture. That's why hurricane Ike was the 3rd worse hurricane after Katrina and Andrew. Ike killed a total of 105 and left countless people with sever injuries. Ike was a category 4 when it developed over the warm ocean water near the equator.But when it made landfall in Galveston Texas it was a category 3 That's why I chose to write about hurricane Ike.
I hope you learned a lot from my article. I also hope that next time you watch the weather channel you will understand it a little bit better than the past. If you need to learn more check out these websites. www.weatherwizkids.com, www.hurricaneville.com, or www.nhc.noaa.gov. This has been Isaiah Dodson thank you for reading your local news paper.