Nature raises its imposing force through its self-regulation systems. Hurricanes may be natural disasters before our eyes, but in reality they are Earth’s mechanisms to maintain planetary balance. But how do hurricanes form? The big question that must be resolved to understand exactly why they happen and how they are gestated
What are hurricanes?
Every year, between the months of June and November, a series of climatic events begin to take place that affect the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico and the east coast of the United States. The so-called hurricanes are present in this region and although in most cases they do not make landfall so violently, there is always the latent possibility that the force of one of them is such that it enters the mainland with great force.
It should be noted that hurricanes only affect the North Atlantic Ocean and the Northeast Pacific, not because they only occur there, but because the term hurricane is exclusive to this geographical area. In the northeastern Pacific Ocean they are called typhoons. While in the Indian Ocean and the South Pacific they are called cyclones. Although the scientific term for all of them is tropical cyclone.
Hurricanes are actually natural energy pumps that the planet generates to release it into the atmosphere. But for these to form, certain specific conditions are required, such as warm and humid air. According to NASA, tropical cyclones are like giant engines that use warm, humid air as fuel. It is for this reason that they form only over oceans of temperate water near the Equator.
How do hurricanes form?
Most of them begin to develop from a tropical wave, which occurs as an atmospheric disturbance that creates a low pressure area, generally in East Africa. If such a disturbance meets the right conditions, then the area of low pressure begins to move from east to west. If it were to reach the Atlantic Ocean and encounter water temperatures above 27°C, then the tropical wave may become a hurricane.
Although there are still other conditions that must be met for a hurricane to develop. All this has to happen at the right latitudes, generally between the 10° and 30° parallels of the Northern Hemisphere. Because in this region the effect of the Earth’s rotation can help the winds to converge and ascend around the area of low pressure.
From here, when warm air rises and cools, it forms clouds that are then fed by heat from the ocean and water evaporating from the surface. Thus, he starts hurricanes, but not all of them behave in the same way. Storms that form north of the equator rotate counterclockwise. While storms that form south of the equator rotate clockwise.
As the turn begins to gain more force, an eye forms in the center. Then the phenomenon reaches its characteristic shape, where a bunch of clouds rotate around a center rapidly. When winds in the whirling storm reach 39 mph, the storm is called a «tropical storm.» And when they reach 74 mph, the storm is officially considered a «tropical cyclone,» or hurricane. That’s how hurricanes form, the huge ocean engines that release pent-up energy into atmospheric currents.
Tropical cyclones generally weaken upon landfall as they have lost their ‘fuel’ and can no longer draw on energy from the oceans. However, some are so strong that they push through large tracts of land before vanishing, leaving extensive damage in their wake.
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