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Hurricane Formation and MovementHurricanes form over Africa, and they start out as regular storms. They end up as extremely destructive storms, with winds up to 220 miles per hour, up to a twenty foot storm surge, and they can be as much as a thousand miles across. They start out as a small storm in Africa, and gain strength as they move over the warm, late summer Atlantic waters. There, they become more powerful, and may become tropical storms, which is such a delicate and seemingly random process that it has spawned the saying "A butterfly flies to the right of a tree instead of flying to the left, and the most destructive storm in eighty years hits the North American coastline." They gain even more strength as they go through the Gulf of Mexico, and they may become a hurricane, a gigantic storm with winds of up to 78 miles per hour, and a so called "eye" (a calm spot, with no clouds) in the center.Some gain enough strength to become a category four hurricane, with wind speeds of up to 138 miles per hour, or even a category five hurricane, with at least 155 mile per hour winds. Hurricanes can gain strength so quickly that they can almost become a category four hurricane overnight. Hurricane Andrew, which inflicted almost 30 billion dollars of damage on the Florida coastline, was a regular tropical storm, spiraling away from the United States before it passed over a warm spot in the Atlantic Ocean, and switched directions. It hit Miami as a category four storm, and it may even have reached category five. Hurricanes can move anywhere from four to forty miles per hour, largely depending on how quickly the wind pushes them. They also move towards low-pressure zones, because the air is not too dense, and they normally bounce off high-pressure zones, because the air is very dense, thus keeping the hurricanes from moving through them with ease. Hurricanes are very volatile and are dependant on many factors, despite their awesome strength and their amazing distructive potential. |
