Hurricane Isabel
Isabel of 2003
Written by: Heidi Hall
What you Need to Know About a Hurricane if you Don't Already...
A hurricane is a deadly storm. To be considered a hurricane, there has to be wind and water involved. The winds have to be seventy-four miles per hour. A hurricane occurs in the fall months so about the first of June to the end of November.
What is a Hurricane?
A hurricane is a storm that has a lot of water involved and high winds. Hurricanes take warm ocean water to form. In the middle of a hurricane, there is an eye way that helps maintain the strength of the hurricane. After a hurricane makes landfall, it weakens because it can't get much water. The picture to the left is some of the damage that was done by Hurricane Isabel. There was like a river of water running through this town. It destroyed this home.
How to Name and Categorize a Hurricane
Naming and categorizing a hurricane is easy. In 1953, the US Weather Bureau switched the names to just women names. Eventually people noticed that it was just women names so they finally changed them to both women and men names. In 1979, the World Meteorologic Organization made six different lists of both women and men names that they would alternate each year for six years. The World Meteorologic Organization also made different names depending on the part of the world the hurricane was in. If a hurricane does a lot of damage, it's name is retired and replaced with another. The difference between a hurricane and a typhoon is that a hurricane forms in the Atlantic and near the United States and a typhoon forms near Japan. When people are trying to categorize a hurricane they can use the Saffir-Simpson Scale. The categories are a category one is 64-82 mph winds, category two is 83-95 mph winds, category three is 96-113 mph winds, category four is 114-135 mph winds, and a category five is anything bigger than 135 mph winds. The picture in the top right hand corner is a satellite picture of Hurricane Isabel. As you can see in the picture there's a dot in the middle that's called the eye of the hurricane it helps it maintain the strength of the hurricane.
Hurricane Isabel of 2003
Isabel became a hurricane on September 7th 2003. Isabel was a very violent hurricane. It caused a lot of damage and took some life's When Isabel made landfall it was a category four. Isabel was the strongest since Hurricane Mitch. The wind gusts got over 135 mph. So, it eventually became a category five because the wind gusts got over 135 mph. Isabel caused seventeen deaths. Isabel hit Chesapeake Bay on September 8th. There was eight feet of flooding across the bays of Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and Washington D.C. Isabel toppled over trees and cut off power to more than four million customers. There was so much damage from Isabel that it costed three billion dollars in damage. The picture to the right hand corner is another picture of some of the damage done by Isabel. As you can see there is a tree toppled over in the middle of the road.
Why are Hurricanes so Important
Hurricanes are so important to learn about because they can happen anywhere and we need to know what to do. Hurricanes can be deadly storms. Hurricanes have to have wind and water. To be considered a hurricane, the winds have to be above 64 mph. This is why hurricanes are so important. The picture to the left is a tracking picture of hurricane Isabel. As you can see it started in the ocean and worked its way up the coast of the United States and grew bigger at it did.