Agitated by the constant hurricane updates on the Weather Channel and other media? Need to answer your kid's questions about hurricanes? Here's some basic scientific information about the scary storms that come with familiar names, and how to weather them.
Typically over 300-miles wide and possessing winds that extend for hundreds of miles more, hurricanes are among the most powerful and destructive of all meteorological phenomena. In the past century they were responsible for over 15,000 deaths in the United States alone. Even today, despite the aid of highly advanced tracking systems and warning procedures, a minimum of 25 to 50 Americans are killed yearly by floods, winds, and destruction caused by hurricanes.
Often times, those who choose to ignore storm warnings become victims of Mother Nature's fury.
1. What is a hurricane, anyway?
Hurricanes are essentially a tropical low-pressure system known as a tropical cyclcone, consisting of organized clouds and strong thunderstorms that circulate (counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere, clockwise in the Southern) around a central area. Hurricanes are classified as such when they produce wind speeds of over 74 mph. Storms with wind speeds between 39 and 73 mph are classified as tropical storms, and organized systems with winds below 39 mph are classified as tropical depressions.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, scientists actually use much more specific terms to identify the geographic location of such tropical cyclones. The names used are:
- "hurricane" (if it occurs in the North Atlantic Ocean, the Northeast Pacific Ocean east of the dateline, or the South Pacific Ocean east of 160E)
- "typhoon" (the Northwest Pacific Ocean west of the dateline)
- "severe tropical cyclone" (the Southwest Pacific Ocean west of 160E or Southeast Indian Ocean east of 90E)
- "severe cyclonic storm" (the North Indian Ocean)
- "tropical cyclone" (the Southwest Indian Ocean)
2. How do hurricanes happen?
Tropical depressions (which sometimes build into hurricanes) form when a pre-existing weather system such as a simple thunderstorm picks up heat and energy through contact with warm ocean waters. Winds which carry moisture from the ocean's surface spiral up — and this spiraling motion is key — into the storm's low-pressure center. When that moisture condenses into drops, more energy is created, and the storm begins to grow larger and move higher into the atmosphere.
Countries close to the equator attract the fewest hurricanes because of the "Coriolis force" — a principle of physics whereby moving objects are deflected relative to a rotating reference frame. Because the earth's equator is right in the middle of the spinning globe, the force is zero here and even the presence of warm air and moisture isn't enough to create hurricane or typhoon conditions.
Eventually, the eye of the storm will form around rapidly sinking air that dries and warms the area around it. A hurricane can "live" for over two weeks, and in that time travel thousands of miles. It may lose strength and die when high-speed upper-atmospheric winds tear the system apart, or as is often the case, when landfall robs the storm of its all-important moisture source.
3. Have hurricanes always been around?
The deadliest storm in recent history occurred in October 1780, when an estimated 20,000 lost their lives in the Caribbean over the course of six days. In 1900, a hurricane struck Galveston, Texas and killed over 8,000 people. Over the course of the last century, deaths throughout the world have declined, as construction techniques have been steadily improved. However, with modernization, monetary damage from storms has skyrocketed. Hurricane Katrina, which struck America's southern coast in 2005, is said to have caused $81 billion in damage with more than 1,800 lost lives.
4. Do we know when a hurricane is coming?
For over 50 years, scientists from all over the world have been watching, flying through, and studying hurricanes. As technology has progressed, techniques for predicting and tracking the storms have improved. Yet the secrets behind formation and movement of hurricanes have still not completely revealed themselves, and forecasts that attempt to predict their paths beyond a day or two are educated guesses at best.
5. Why are hurricanes named?
Hurricanes have been given names for hundreds of years. In the West Indies, it was once tradition to name a storm after the particular saint's day on which it occurred. During World War II, it became common practice to name hurricanes after females. In 1978, the World Meteorological Association approved a plan to use both male and female names, all of an international flavor, which would be chosen a number of years in advance. Once a system with counter-clockwise circulation and wind speeds of 39 mph is identified, the Tropical Prediction Center near Miami, Florida assigns a name from the predetermined list.
The letters Q, U, X, Y and Z are not used, due to the scarcity of names beginning with those respective letters. Storms that cause significant death and/or destruction have their names officially "retired" from the pool of future names.
For any year, you can check the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration website and see if your name will be on the list!
6. What can I do if a hurricane is coming?
The best thing to do when you first hear that a hurricane may be in your region is to stay informed, and keep an eye on the path of the storm as it approaches. Hurricane Irene, one of the first major hurricanes of the 2011 travel season, grew in strength moving north in the Atlantic, causing damage in the Bahamas but didn't really hit till it got to New York. The precautions issued to residents of US coastal cities are worth remembering for all storm watchers:
- If evacuation plans are put into place in your community, follow them.
- Vacationers should follow their hotel instructions carefully, remembering to take cover-all clothing and closed shoes if evacuating to a hotel facility outside your guest room.
- If staying at home throughout the storm, plan to stock one gallon of bottled water per day per family member.
- Get a car battery-powered cellphone charger so that you can stay in touch even if power outages occur.
- Stock enough canned food to last 3 days.
- Have a battery powered radio available.
- Know where the nearest shelter is located, often in your neighborhood school.
- To safeguard your home, seal all doors and windows with shutters and tie down outdoor furniture against the wind.
- Make sure you have a First Aid Kit on hand with enough ibuprofen, tweezers, alcohol wipes, antiseptic hand cleaner, medical adhesive tape and gauze, bandaids, insect bite swabs, antibiotic ointment, hydrogen peroxide, scissors, instant cold packs, and exam gloves to take care of minor injuries and cuts that may occur.
And unless you're a surfer, stay away from these fierce storms. Hurricanes are serious buisness.
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I poured my heart and soul into this!!! Hope you people enjoy! =)
Wow, this is wonderful! You are so lucky to have gotten this opportunity. You looked absolutely gorgeous at the show and the red carpet. Thanks for sharing this, it really made me smile. I used to have the biggest crush on Joe Jonas.. hahah!
Amazing trip!
I hope that my story will inspire and enrich your lives; even if it doesn’t touch you as much as it has touched me. I hope that this will be passed on and that people will take a few minutes just to read what I had to say and try to be in the mind of these children. Try to change your day and see your house, your possessions, your income, and those many great things that you possess and find a way to share them with others. We all need a wakeup call sometimes, a message to straighten us out and look at the life we were given. I hope to go back next year to repeat the experience all over again and try to change myself even more, I love those children and I love their compassion and selflessness. Words can’t fully express what I felt or what I witnessed but my words are clear, these people see the world much differently than us, they treat possessions differently and they know how to work as a community.
This is about when my family and I took a trip down to Central Florida for our Family Vacation.
Hope you enjoy!
This was a vacation that taught me a lot about how my religion is organzied and gave me more appreciation for it.
I will never forget the time I spent in Germany.
I hope you guys enjoyed my story!
Best luck.
South Africa is this amazing country that not only is beautiful for its animals and scenery but for its people and for its ability to overcome the greatest oppression: apartheid, the discrimination of the majority. I am so glad I was given the gift of traveling to South Africa. It is an experience I will never forget!
It was a great trip!
I hope everyone who takes the time to read The Awakening enjoys learning about my bus ride to reality.
My typed essay about my vacation in Vietnam. It seem poorly written or should I say typed :\
Bryan Gray Europe Tour.
My vacation to Panama became suprisingly meaningful, contrary to what I had initially expected.
Thank you
This was a fun and yet difficult project i truely have enjoyed sharing my vaction with you.
Mahalo,
Have you ever been to Maine? What did you like best?
This is such an amazing story and essay!!
Their were many more memories from this trip that impacted me as much as the ones that were included, but I just didnt have enough room. So, I shortened it and tried to write the best description of the trip without exceeding the word limit. But the trip was, indeed, as remarkable as I said it was.
Washington is a really nice place. It has many museums and historical places. it also has very delicious foods. Chinatown was my favorite place to eat.
Thank you for this scholarship opportunity!
IB York was a great experience, and a great opportunity to explore new ideas and innovations
So now I head to college without my classmates but i will always have this wonderful experience.
🙂
This is one of my many travel adventure stories from my trip to Europe in the beginning of the summer. Besides Prague, I traveled to Berlin, Munuch, and Nuremberg in Germany, Innsbruck in Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, and France. My favorite place was Switzerland, but my favorite story was the one I shared. I hope you enoy reading it as much as i enjoyed experiencing it!
I want everyone to be able to expericence something like I did.:) Everyone desevers happines!
I hope you enjoyed my travel blog and I hope you plan to take your mom to the Peaks of Otter Lodge for the best brunch you will ever eat. For more information click on this link:
http://www.peaksofotter.com/
Finished product. I love PERU!
This eye-opening opportunity has shaped my conviction toward making change and developing the community. It is a great pleasure to meet all those Leadership Award Honorees and other49 ANNpower fellows from 24 states in the U.S. I will continue to make change and build a dynamic community, excursively to ethnic, social, political gender aspects of advantage, as my milestone to become a great leader!
This eye-opening opportunity marks the culmination of my junior year. I am so glad to meet all those wonderful women leaders from all around the world and 49 other ANNpower fellows from other 24 states. I will continue to explore the world and make change with eagerness and confident, and overcoming disadvantage exclusively toward the milestone of a great leader!
I hope everyone enjoys my trip to Catalina and Ensenada!
This trip was the best trip regarding family time. It is unforgettable.
To see more photography from the trip, check out my photojournal: http://www.facebook.com/pages/A-Photojournal-of-My-Grecian-Travels/213497035367351.
What a testimony!! Thanks for posting. You don't know how impactful this is. Let Jesus keep using you for His glory. 😉
I was saved in August of 2009. I was in my parents's room and we all prayed for m, becuase I was tired of not having a desire for God. There I gave my life to Him and let Him be my Lord. I already excepted Him as Savior, but though it was a license to sin. Thatt day, though I wanted to repent of my sin and let God lead me. Lord and Savior go hand-in-hand. My life is changed. Now I have convictions and am learning so much about seeking God, because He is seeking me. It's awesome to live in the security and hope of knowing I will see Him one day in heaven. I am so glad He lives in me, because my goodness outside of Him is nothing. I don't know what I would do without Him.
Jesus used that park to bring you and your dad back together. How beautiful 🙂
Each place I go, I leave a peice of myself. And everyplace I go leaves a peice of itself in me. The people I have met along the way have changed me in the deepest way. Their lives have touched mine and I can never return to life as was usual. Likewise, my life has touched many along the way. It is my hope that nobody I meet along the way may return to life as was their usual. This is how each thead pulls coth and fabric together as we the people of the world cover it like a quilt. We must double stitch each peice so not to fall apart or leave holes. We need one another.
To whoever reading this, I am the person wearing blue shirt and white shorts, sligtly leaning on the panda bear statue.
My essay that talks about my experience traveling to Lima, Peru aims toward encouraging others who are not too familiar with it to visit and appreciate the fun life changing experience they're gauranteed to get.
What a great contest! Hope to see lots of terrific teen travel stories here!
It was difficult for me to type a 600 word blog about an amazing experience I had in the month of July. It was also difficult for me to choose certain pictures from the ones that I have chosen, so I uploaded the pictures of my time at NeiHu elementary school. I really wished that I could have used more sightseeing photos, but unfortunately, those were too big to upload.
This trip was amazing and it also tested who I am becoming as a person. Seeing the woman in Central Park living out her dream, to the woman selling fruit throughout the day; New York is made of dreamers and hardworking people. I loved it. Hope I get the chance to go back.
This was an amazing experience! I am so grateful for everything it taught me!!
From research, I believe the ice cream shop was called Eisdiele Eddy. More information about the exchange program can be found at http://www.aatg.org/study-trip-faq as well as at the bottom of the page at http://www.aatg.org/NGE-awards.
These Picutures are both of my own creation (one being an acrylic painting). When I took this picture at the western wall in Israel, the man in the photo was crying his heart out wearing a tattered down bath robe, I thought it would make for an intersting picture. So it did, it also inspired to me to create a painting in which I showed the world what I believe he really is. A man who is down on his luck but seems to still find peace in his life.
My sophomore year of high school I went to Donner Pass in California with a group called The Woods Project (www.thewoodsproject.org) . I had to apply to go , I was really anxious and scared that I wasn’t going to get. When I got my acceptance letter I was excited. I was also nervous because I had never been away from home for more than a week and The Woods project was going to last for two weeks. I had chosen to go to Donner Pass because I wanted to experience something new. I was going to go backpacking for one week and hiking the other. I had never gone backpacking before. When I told my friends that I was going backpacking they started to laugh because I am the smallest girl in my whole school and they didn’t think I was going to make it. Getting that response from my friends made me super scared of going to the trip. I thought I was going to die while backpacking!
My dad went to go drop me off at the airport and then he left. I was already scared and freaking out at the fact that he had just left me there and I did not know anybody! . I got in the plane to California and I was already regretting going on the trip. I was going to be with complete strangers for two weeks! When we got to California we all got split .There were three groups going to different places, one to Yosemite, another to Marine Headlines and then mine, to Donner Pass. I got in a van and that’s where I met the people who I was going to spend two weeks with. We were in that van for hours! When we finally got to our cabin we had to go up a hill to get to the door.
The first cabin we stayed in was named Clair Tappan Lodge. It was really nice . It was made out of wood, had a pool table, personal chef, jacuzzi and hot water in the showers. I loved it there! Too bad it only lasted for two days then it was time to go backpacking. They gave us our backpacking materials. I tried on the backpack and almost fell over. My backpacking week had started. We went up and down mountains, through rivers and lakes, and I thought we were never going to set up our tents. When it started to get dark we finally started cooking. The food we had was not good at all. We couldn’t bring a lot of food because of the bears and other animals. My second day of backpacking went better than the first. Everybody in my group started to know each other better and soon we became really close. We would sing while backpacking to make time pass faster and at night we didn’t want to sleep because we would play games. While backpacking I got to experience many things I hadn’t before. Even though I was the smallest girl going backpacking I was always the leader of the line because of my stamina.
When our backpacking week ended it was time to hike. I had gotten the hardest part of the trip over with so I knew hiking was going to be a piece of cake. We would hike in the morning and hanged out at night. It was the best experience I had ever had! When it was time to go back home I didn’t want to because I knew I would miss my friends.
To watch my video go to : http://youtu.be/FLd7W71EnyU
My experience as a first time camper.
i hope i win