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World Affairs, Ecology & Environment
Mahesh

02/07/24 10:58 AM IST

Hurricanes and their types

In News
  • Following their win in the ICC World T20 Cup, the Indian cricket team has been stranded in Barbados due to Hurricane Beryl.
Hurricane Beryl
  • Hurricane Beryl is the earliest category 4 storm – sustaining winds of at least 130 miles per hour (209 kilometres per hour) – to mark the beginning of the Atlantic hurricane season this year.
  • It is currently surging through the Windward Islands, the southern part of the Lesser Antilles, which form part of the West Indies and comprise Barbados, Grenada and Trinidad and Tobago.
  • A landfall is not likely to occur but the nearest islands are expected to be heavily affected, with island communities facing the prospects of violent winds and flash flooding.
  • Beryl is the strongest storm to impact the Windward Islands since Hurricane Ivan in September 2004.
Hurricanes & their Types
  • Tropical cyclones or hurricanes use warm, moist air as fuel, and therefore form over warm ocean waters near the equator.
  • As NASA describes it, when the warm, moist air rises upward from the surface of the ocean, it creates an area of low air pressure below.
  • Air from the surrounding areas rushes to fill this place, eventually rising when it becomes warm and moist too.
  • When the warm air rises and cools off, the moisture forms clouds.
  • This system of clouds and winds continues to grow and spin, fuelled by the ocean’s heat and the water that evaporates from its surface.
  • As such storm systems rotate faster and faster, an eye forms in the centre.
  • Storms that form towards the north of the equator rotate counterclockwise, while those that form to the south spin clockwise because of the rotation of the Earth.
Hurricanes V/s Tropical Cyclones
  • There is no difference. Depending on where they occur, hurricanes may be called typhoons or cyclones.
  • As per NASA, the scientific name for all these kinds of storms is tropical cyclones.
  • The tropical cyclones that form over the Atlantic Ocean or the eastern Pacific Ocean are called hurricanes and the ones that form in the Northwest Pacific are called typhoons.
  • Tropical storms that form in the Bay of Bengal or the Arabian Sea are called cyclones.
Source- Indian Express

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