You might have a variety of ways to keep protected against the forces of powerful hurricane winds. These include some safety measures you can contribute to your home should you decide not to leave.

They probably are not entirely fool proof however they might help increase your chances of staying safe. They may help you in the cases of strong winds caused by thunderstorms, tornadoes, and also some tropical storms. Nevertheless, beware that they’re not always the best for big hurricanes that might hit.

When it comes to a large hurricane storm you often ought to get away from your home and look for safe emergency shelter. Nonetheless, the more protection you have on your windows and doors the better. This may reduce the amount of damage that might be done in case that a hurricane does strike.

It will help in the case of a tornado also, so when wind blows against your windows it might lessen the possibility of glass breaking. However, it’s debatable if you should keep windows open in a tornado. Many people might choose to leave in the case of a storm of that nature also.

Window shutters, panels, and rollups are made of various materials. A few of the strongest are produced from metal components or strong woods like oak. Some are plywood too. The sort of materials you might need to protect your home will depend on the types of natural disasters that you’d assume in your area.

In case you just moved to a region and you’re not sure just what the climate is within the area to which you have just moved you will need to determine. This should help you keep as safe as it can be and take proper action.

For instance, if you reside in a hurricane area you need to make sure you take professional advice in order to be safe in the event of a hurricane. You’ll find various ideas about hurricane safety and it’s essential that you should be properly informed prior to making home safety decisions.

You need to ensure that you get the best value for your money so you are as safe as you possibly can. Should you be looking for professional advice on how to protect your property from a hurricane, you should consult with expert development planners or qualified architects. They could help push you in the proper direction.

It is very important be safe rather than sorry when deciding to protect your home. Some window shutters come on a roller and you could easily close them over your window, while others are hinged. There are other types to pick from as well.

When you are unsure which type of shutter or other window or home protecting gadget could be right for you, it is advisable to perform some research. The best way to learn about various goods without even picking up the telephone should be to look for them online using the proper key words.

Such as, if you’re searching for hurricane or tornado window shutters you will have to search with key words associated with those subjects. This should help you discover reviews, prices, and consumer data, together with expert information regarding various home weather products.

You should ensure that you get in touch with the right people who know exactly what you will really need in the matter of a natural disaster. Home designers may be one of your best sources for this information, and perhaps professional home building magazines.

If you’re even now not certain what sort of safety add-ons you will have to protect your home you can try using government authorized products. While in doubt, these materials could be some of the safest ones to work with.

Actually, most counties in many states of the U.S. have their own county or maybe their own city building code. If you are using this you can expect to have some of the safest materials around.

Tracking maps are one valuable approach to monitor the direction of the hurricane. Using such maps helps you to know when and when not to enter an area.

These maps are available in several different ways. Among the best ways to locate them today is by using the web. They’re also available on television on media channels from time to time. The benefit to locating them online is you can check out them at any time during the day or night.

Tracking maps are generally kept up to day minute by minute whenever possible. You’ll find various sorts of hurricane tracking maps, which provide you with some different kinds of information in several different ways.

Most of these tracking maps are color-coded and every color shows how close or far the map user is from an affected region. This helps someone take the proper action when it comes to an evacuation. These maps will also help a person determine if or when it is risk-free to stay home also.

The key reason why a lot of people refer to these tracking maps is because they might already have securely escaped a hurricane. They don’t want to end up driving into a different one.

By using a hurricane-tracking map helps people protect their family along with their own lives. It can also help prevent any damage to a car or truck that might result from getting stuck in flooding waters if someone is going back home after a hurricane.

Tracking maps can also be helpful when someone knows exactly where they’ll be planning a trip to during an evacuation. The reason is because tracking maps help an individual know whether or not the route they’ve mapped out is going to be safe. If the route they’ve mapped out for themselves isn’t risk-free then a different route may be used.

Obviously, it could be difficult to search on the internet while driving. Hence, you’ll find a number of pocket gadgets, and naturally laptop computers may be used also. Wind motion detectors and pressure readers, and a number of other weather tools can assist you on the way out from a hurricane disaster and also to back to a scene after the disaster.

You have got to be as ready as you can. If you don’t have a tracking map, you at least ought to have a mobile phone along with you and use it to make a call periodically to some weather service. You may also have a lightweight radio, or use the radio that’s positioned in your car that you’ll be driving.

A lot more lives are being saved as technology becomes a lot more advanced. Tropical storms and hurricanes are being detected much quicker than they used to be. The speed of the storm as well as direction of the storm are generally found within just minutes, and often in less time with all the numerous tracking technology that’s out these days.

You might not always have to leave, and tracking maps may help you in that time also. You can keep track of friends, family members, co-workers, and other people who may live even further from you. If the storm has passed you already there’s a possibility one of them may seek shelter from you in the time of need should they have nowhere else to go.

If you’re able to use tracking maps and also get hold of your own hurricane tracking devices it may help protect quite a bit of people. It might even save an entire neighborhood.

You ought to perform some research on them to find the best choice for you. They could be easily found online or you can call a weather service hotline for support. They will direct you to the correct place.

In order to categorizing hurricanes, cyclones, and typhoons researchers had to discover a method to identify different levels of intensity in terms of harm and severity.  Based on maximum wind speeds and storm surge, a hurricane scale was created, which ranges from Level 1 to Level 5.  The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale was created to monitor and rank the intensities of hurricanes, cyclones, and typhoons.

When investigating the power of these storms, meteorologists evaluate their maximum wind speeds as well as storm surge.  A storm surge is a speed of water that comes onshore from the low-pressure storm, like those in a tropical cyclone.  Typically, it’s the high winds of the storm that drive the water further onshore.  The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale is employed to categorize hurricanes influencing the United States, but other areas on earth use other ways of rating their storms.  The scale doesn’t take into account the amount of rainfall or location, meaning that a Level 2 hurricane which hits a major city will probably do more destruction than a Level 5 hurricane that hits a rural area.

Level 1 storm’s are regarded as being rather weak and usually produce minimal amount of harm to trees, bushes, and mobile houses.  Storms within the Level One category will achieve wind speeds between 74-95 miles per hour and their storm surge will reach 4 to 5 feet.  Level 2 is considered to be an average storm and results in obvious destruction of trees and mobile houses, along with piers.  This kind of storm has been able to rip the shingles from roofs and lead to more damage to the tops of houses.  The wind speeds in a Level Two storm can reach between 96-110 miles per hour as well as their storm surge reaches 6-8 feet.

Level 3 is considered powerful and is known for blowing down trees or stripping the leaves from the branches.  Mobile houses will probably be ruined within these kinds of storms and destruction of other types of buildings can also be very likely.  Level Three storms reach wind speeds as high as 111-130 miles per hour and the storm surge reaches 9-12 feet.  Level 4 storms are considered to be very strong having the ability to produce substantial harm to houses, including the windows, doors, and roofs.  When living nearby the shoreline, the destruction might be a lot more devastating.  The probability of flooding is high when this kind of storm hits.  Level Four storms attain wind speeds of up to 131-155 miles per hour plus the storm surge reaches 13-18 feet.

Level 5 is regarded as the worst level of hurricanes, cyclones, and typhoons.  Smaller buildings are going to be overturned or blown away with the winds from the Level Five storm.  The structural destruction been given from this category hurricane or storm is extremely serious, with wind speeds reaching 156 plus miles per hour.  The storm surge in a Level Five storm is 19 plus feet.  It’s within this category that Hurricane Katrina was positioned with maximum wind speeds of over 175 miles per hour.

The Saffir-Simpson scale is used to provide an estimate of the possible damage to property and flooding expected along the coastline from the hurricane landfall.  Wind speed will be the determining factor in the scale, as storm surge values are hugely dependent on the slope of the continental shelf within the landfall area.  A category five, or “catastrophic” hurricane has wind speeds more than 155 miles per hour and can result in total failure on roofs of houses and industrial buildings and significant damage to constructions less than 15 feet above sea level within 1,500 feet of shore.  A category five storm needs evacuation of all residential areas on low-lying ground within 5 to 10 miles of the shoreline.

Hurricane season threatens the eastern and gulf shorelines of the United States, Mexico, as well as the Caribbean each year between June 1 and November 30.  In other areas on the planet, the identical kinds of storms are usually known as typhoons or cyclones.  Hurricanes inflict damage every time they strike and they can kill lots of people and result in billions of dollars in damage to property whenever they hit heavily populated regions.

In accordance with the National Hurricane Center, a hurricane is actually a tropical cyclone occurring in the Atlantic Ocean.  “Tropical cyclone” is a common term used for low-pressure systems that create in the tropics.  Tropical cyclones with highest sustained surface winds of below 17 meters per second are known as tropical depressions.  When the tropical cyclone grows to winds that is at least 17 meters per second, they’re called a tropical storm and assigned a name.  Should the winds achieve 33 meters per second, it’s then termed a hurricane.

Hurricanes are defined by the following characteristics.  They’re tropical, which means they are developed in tropical parts of the ocean close to the Equator.  They’re cyclonic, so that their winds swirl around a central eye.  The wind direction is counterclockwise, or west to east, inside the Northern Hemisphere.  The wind direction within the Southern Hemisphere is clockwise, or east to west.  Hurricanes are low-pressure systems since the eye of the hurricane is actually a low-pressure area.  The lowest barometric pressures ever registered have constantly occurred inside hurricanes.  Additionally, the winds swirling all over the center of the storm possesses a sustained speed that is at least 74 miles per hour.

Hurricanes form in tropical areas where there is warm water, generally no less than 80 degrees Fahrenheit and 27 degrees Celsius, damp air and converging equatorial winds.  Most Atlantic hurricanes start from the western shoreline of Africa and start out as thunderstorms that transfer across the warm and tropical ocean waters.  A thunderstorm gets to hurricane status in three phases.  A tropical depression has swirling clouds and rain with wind speeds of under 38 miles per hour.  A tropical storm has wind speeds of 39 to 73 miles per hour and a hurricane has wind speeds more than 74 miles per hour.  Usually it takes between several hours to a few days for a thunderstorm to build up into a hurricane.  While the whole process of hurricane creation isn’t completely understood, three events have to happen for a hurricane to form.  A continuous evaporation and condensation cycle of hot and damp ocean air should occur.  Patterns of wind characterized by converging winds at the surface area and powerful, uniform-speed winds at higher altitudes also need to occur.  Finally, a difference in air pressure, called pressure gradient, must occur between the surface and the high altitude.

Hot and wet air from the ocean surface starts to increase rapidly.  Since this hot air rises, its water vapor condenses to make droplets of rain and storm clouds.  The condensation releases heat generally known as latent heat of condensation.  This latent heat warms up the cool atmosphere, which causes it to increase.  This rising air is replaced by extra warm and damp air from the sea below.  The cycle continues, drawing more hot and moist air into the producing storm and continuously shifting heat from the surface to the atmosphere.

The exchange of heat from the surface results in a pattern of wind that moves around a center.  High-pressure air in the higher atmosphere above the storm’s center also removes heat from the rising air, which further pushes the air cycle along with the hurricane’s progress.  As high-pressure air is sucked into the low-pressure center of the hurricane, wind speeds increase.  When a hurricane forms, it has three main parts, which include the eye, the eye wall, and rain bands.  Rain bands are bands of thunderstorms circulating to the outside from the eye which are part of the evaporation and condensation cycle that feeds the hurricane.

Hurricanes along with other cyclones that form in the tropics during the summer and autumn are quite different from the tropical storms that form throughout the winter.  Both kinds of storms can easily produce strong winds and flooding rain.  There are actually 7 key characteristics that define a tropical storm and they’re that hurricanes haven’t any fronts and the winds weaken with height.  The centers of the hurricane are hotter than their surroundings and they form under weakened high altitude winds.  Air also sinks at the middle of a hurricane the main source of energy is a hidden heat of condensation.  The final major characteristic of a hurricane is they weaken quickly over land.  Over the last third of the 20th century, deluges and landslides from heavy rains were the key reason for hurricane and tropical storm deaths.

To make the most efficient analysis of available data relating to hurricanes, one should know about the normal wind pressure, temperature, atmosphere and weather patterns regarding them.  No two hurricanes are precisely the same and there are good variations between each one.  Specific common features will appear with enough frequency permitting mean pattern classifications.  These characteristics serve as an important guide in reconstructing the picture of the specific hurricane from sparse data.  Given that meteorological factors aren’t distributed uniformly throughout all parts of hurricanes, it’s customary to describe the storms in terms of left and right semicircles or four quadrants.  The division into semi circles is along a line extending by the middle of the cyclone and in the course towards the storm.

The surface winds of the hurricane will blow back to the inside in a counterclockwise direction towards the center.  The winds inside the left back quadrant have the biggest angle of inflow.  The diameter of the area impacted by storm winds could be more than 100 miles in massive storms or no more than 25 miles in lesser storms.  Gale force winds can include an area of 500 to 800 miles if not more.  The maximum extent of strong winds is often in the direction of the main subtropical high-pressure center.  This is most often found on the right on the storm’s way in the Northern Hemisphere.  Surface wind speeds of more than 140 knots have been successfully registered, although the exact measurements of peak wind speeds haven’t been possible with any trustworthy degree of accuracy.

The ocean level isobars are a great tool to examine hurricanes.  The isobars take on a symmetrical or elliptical form.  Contrary to extra tropical cyclones, the tropical cyclones show no cooling towards the storms center.  This means that the horizontal adiabatic cooling caused by reduce pressures and is mainly counteract by the heat added with the condensation process.  The cloud patterns of tropical cyclones also are different from those of extra tropical cyclones.  In mature tropical cyclones, most of the cloud forms are present, but the most substantial clouds would be the heavy cumulus and cumulonimbus clouds, which spiral inward in the direction of the outside edge of the eye.  The eye of a storm is probably the oddest phenomenon knows in meteorology.  Rain ceases suddenly at the boundary of a well-developed eye. The sky clears, the sun or stars become visible, the wind decreases to lower than 15 knots, and there’s a dead calm.

In mature storms, the eye’s size averages about 15 miles. However it might attain over 40 miles in massive typhoons.  The eye will not be always circular and quite often it might be elongated and could appear to have a double structure appearance.  The eye is continually going through transformation and doesn’t remain in a stable condition.

You will have to take additional precautions this time of the year for hurricane season – particularly if you stay in an area where you’re most vulnerable. This is correct of those who live close to the Gulf of Mexico or in case you live over the Atlantic coast.

One safety measure you must take throughout hurricane season is to ensure all of your property shed doors are closed. This may minimize the chances of your doors of those sheds blowing off their hinges and becoming projectiles. Moreover, you should ensure you firmly secure large garden plants using a stake. This will help to reduce the chance that they may be uprooted.

One more safety hint for car owners is to make certain you don’t park your automobile under a tree. Furthermore, you might be driving home when a hurricane strikes. Additionally, when you expect that a storm will hit, or you hear of a hurricane warning, ensure you bring in all flags and awnings.

Before a storm all lawn ornaments like gazing balls and seasonal decorations should be taken away. Or else, these might be danger to yourself or other people. Also, your pool covers must be protected. Moreover, harvest as much of your vegetables from your backyard as you can.

Living on the steep slope or close to water you simply must get ready for possible erosion problems. You must understand what way the water would move through your backyard, and prepare an evacuation procedure in advance. Additionally, you should take away any components of value from your backyard where the water would most strike.

An extra essential safety measure you have got to pay attention to prior to a hurricane is to prepare a first aid kit. This may include more medications, bandages, emergency phone numbers, and extra mobile phone, cash, and whatever else you may fit in it.

Other items that you might like to collect together in case of a storm could be some bottles of water, important documents (driver’s license, social security cards, insurance details, tax files, birth and marriage certificates), along with a flashlight. You’d also make use of a battery-powered radio in a time such as this.

You can even be thinking about packing a bag for every family member to take with you in case of a hurricane evacuation. This handbag would come with any personal things and clothing that you might require.

When it is hurricane season and you’re thinking whether you need to evacuate there is a sure way you can find out. As an example, you may pay attention to weather broadcasts and wait for direction to evacuate. You also can leave if you live on the shore, in a floodplain, around a river, or near an inland waterway.

If you live in a mobile house and you hear of the possibility of a hurricane you should abandon that home and discover better cover. It is wise to prepare this emergency protection place in advance. Should it be a nearby hurricane relief center, a relative’s home, or some other building that you might own which is not based in the area.

You’ll also need to leave the area of a hurricane if you are living in a high-rise building, or a temporary building construction (like a tent). When you just feel you might be at risk it could be necessary to leave also. Once again, it is advisable to have an evacuation plan just before hurricane season strikes.

Extra tips can be found when you learn other articles similar to this, and you’ll visit web sites such as one from FEMA if you require additional information. Better prepared you’re for a disaster the better off you can be.

A part of be prepared for and reacting to a disaster would be to understand the terminology used to describe that disaster. With regards to a hurricane or possible hurricane activity there are a few terms you will have to be familiar with.

Understanding the terminology related to a hurricane disaster will help make you stay alert at that time if listening or viewing a weather report. Some of the terms are as follows:

Advisory: It is a report about current hurricane activity that takes place every 6 hours normally. This activity might or might not affect your immediate location, but you will hear about it.

Special Advisory: It is a report of the recent dramatic change in weather conditions, in particular when it comes to change from calm to possible hurricane-like conditions.

Gale Warning: It is telling people that fierce winds of approximately 35-54 mph and strong wave action takes place.

Storm Warning: This is a sign that winds of 55-73 mph are expected to occur in this area. These winds might have presently taken place somewhere else and are quickly approaching your neighborhood.

Hurricane Watch: It is a caution that a hurricane could strike your location within 24-36 hours.

Hurricane Warning: It is in the case of a hurricane supposed to arrive at an area within 24 hours or less. If it is you, you’re the ones who should most be concerned and want to take action. Should you have not reached this point yet you still might want to take action. The sooner you’re taking action the better.

In the situation of a hurricane warning the winds will blow at 74 mph plus the waves will reach a dangerous height. That is a case in which fatalities and accidents are most likely to take place, and this is the time when people ought to be most alert.

There are some other words that might help a person out also. For example, a tropical disturbance is word of thunderstorms moving in the tropics. Similarly, a tropical depression is an area of low pressure where clouds are spinning in a circular manner, and 38 mph winds are reported.

One last term you may want to learn is the one about the tropical storm. This storm is a lot like that of a hurricane, and a counterclockwise circulation of clouds with winds 39-73 mph characterizes it. If you’re able to take all required precaution, including planning your get away before this point, you are encouraged to do so.

If you need to get ready even before a watch or warning, or you need to prepare for the following hurricane season you’ll be able to take a number of other precautions also. Probably the most common will be to collect together emergency supplies that you will need in the case of an evacuation. These would come with first aid kits, additional medications, and changes of clothes, important documents, plus a flashlight.

You may even need to bring together with you a small amount of water and food and also any personal items needed. Additionally, you should plan your exit route and have a map of the emergency shelter location.

Preferably, if you need to evacuate your immediate area you’ll want to do so as soon as you can. Hence, you’ll want your emergency shelter location being as close to you as possible, yet far enough aside where that person or group isn’t in danger themselves. Actually, it could be beneficial that you can plan several emergency destination should the very first doesn’t work out.

Extra hurricane readiness tips and information can be found within articles just like it. You’ll learn about several different ways to protect you, your entire family, as well as your whole neighborhood. The more safety measure you take the more lives might be saved.

Preparing for a hurricane might be stressful – before, during and after. It’s especially stressful when you have lived through it or who’ve lost loved ones in that time.

You could notice it in men and women this time of the season if you are living in an area where people have lived in the pressure of a hurricane disaster. If you’re visiting a place like this, or if you live in a location such as this, try the best you are able to be patient with each other, since this is often a high cause for anxiety.

Those who are anxious tend to also be irritable, easily frustrated or angered, depressed, or moody. If it is the case around this time of the year where you live attempt to comfort each other during this time period, and support one another prepare too.

Hurricane season usually lasts from June 1st through November 30th on the Atlantic coast in locations like Long Island. Hence, this is the time of year to be considering it, and also to get ready for next year in case you have not already done this.

One essential element of preparing for a hurricane emergency is to make an evacuation plan. This can include establishing a place of shelter which is away from hurricane hot spot. This is where you could go to protect you and your family members in case of a storm.

You should draw yourself a simple map to your risk-free emergency destination. It’ll both help direct you in case you get stressed and scared and have a problem concentrating if you’re in the center of a hurricane disaster.

It’s perfect to find out just how quite a few miles away your safety location is and how long it will take you to get there as well. Ideally it will have to be far enough away from the harm yet close enough for you to get do without getting trapped in the heart of that damage.

Another thing you will have to do to prepare as well is to make up an evacuation kit. You can even wish to have one for each and every member of your family. This could be a tiny handbag, pack, or suitcase with emergency supplies in it. The emergency supplies that you’d include in this bag could include a first aid kit, additional medicines, clothes, mobile phone, money, important documents, and so on.

You might also be thinking about taking blankets and whatever else you can imagine you could bring with you. It is a good idea to get all of these emergency items stored in a place where you could very easily access the materials leaving once you feel you’d be in danger. This will help to save your life, as well as lives of you family.

Other safety measures that you could take to help reduce your anxiety along with the anxiousness of those near you are to build your property as secure as possible. For example, you could make trees more wind resistant by cutting off dead limbs. Then you can remove branches in a manner that allows the wind to flow through the trees more easily.

One more precaution is using permanent shutters on the home windows, and protection around places with sliding glass doors. You’ll also need to strengthen garage doors and any brickwork which is not reinforced. Moreover, any unprotected object that might be picked up by the wind should be thoroughly stored or removed.

All who have been through it before want to do everything they can to prevent from losing everything – including lives of the people of their family. Hence, they would like to keep as informed as possible in order to get ready for this year’s hurricane season.

Information can be obtained via numerous sources. One place to find this information is through the Red Cross, or through FEMA. You may also read more articles just like this one that will help save your life – as well as other lives – when it comes to a hurricane disaster.

It might be difficult to overstate the level of the devastation Hurricane Katrina caused on the Gulf Coast of the United States. It appears at most costly hurricane at any time hitting the USA, and one of the most harmful. The mega-storm caused extraordinary damage so far as 100 miles out of the center. No less than 1,800 people lost their lives in the storm and its aftermath; authorities think we’ll never know the real number as numerous bodies were probably washed out to sea. More than 80% of New Orleans was under water when the hurricane passed, and more than 700,000 households have been destroyed across the Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama coasts. Hurricane Katrina didn’t only ruin people’s lives, nonetheless. The environmental effects of the hurricane were serious and can have long-lasting outcomes for the Gulf Coast.

The beach erosion brought on by Hurricane Katrina practically obliterated shorelines and whole islands. Areas impact by Hurricane Katrina had already been weakened by Hurricane Ivan a year earlier, and the toll caused by Katrina entirely transformed the surroundings. The Chandeleur Islands, off the coast of Louisiana, no more exist after Hurricane Katrina, and the well-known lighthouse on those islands was ruined. Erosion from Hurricane Georges in 1998 had earlier almost obliterated the island, but they had reformed when Katrina strike. Since Katrina, geological research indicates that the islands aren’t reforming. The islands will vanish from the map forever in just a few decades if the movement of the sand doesn’t change. These islands were barrier islands, which presented a natural kind of protection for the mainland from flooding waves and storm surges. Without these islands, another Katrina will only be even worse. Beach erosion also reduces the distance of houses from the ocean, raising the chance of water damage with even weaker storms. Moreover, the vanishing beaches have a negative effect on the important travel business in the region.

Tidal marsh land has also been flooded throughout the storm. The marsh land, as well as land lost to beach erosion, was land that’s used as a breeding ground for a lot of sea animals. Ducks, pelicans, and turtles all lost their harmless havens through Hurricane Katrina. Approximately 20% of the flooded marsh land is forever lost, a blow to both animal life as well as the human interests within the surrounding area. Tidal marsh land gives an additional natural barrier against flood water. The loss of this land puts more and more people at risk of harmful flooding.

Lake Pontchartrain also could have been completely damaged for an effect of Hurricane Katrina. To get the water away from the flooded New Orleans, the water was just pumped back into the Lake. The problem is, once it was all moved back in, 43 days later, that water was polluted with raw sewage, chemical, harmful bacteria from decomposing bodies, and 6.5 millions of gallons of oil. Experts expect to see a huge loss of fish life in the lake for many years, and also the risk to humans who swimming in the lake has not yet been fully understood.

The rebuilding of the Gulf Coast can be a contentious issue, which can be counted as another ecological impact of the storm. In a hurry to rebuild, the government has lifted permit restrictions on marsh land for building firms, allowing even more valuable marsh land being lost. Lots of people, who’ve been fighting this development for a long time, are outraged their disaster has provided an open window for corporations to destroy this land. The actual environmental outcomes from Hurricane Katrina will not be known for a generation or more, until the future storm blows by.

Hurricanes will be the most powerful of the windy and moving storms, and they are frequently named cyclones.  They’re well known in the Atlantic and eastern Pacific oceans and in the western Pacific they’re known as typhoons.  Most Atlantic hurricanes are born in the southern Atlantic Ocean, away from the seacoast of Africa, in the months of June through November every year.  During this period, winds from the western coast of Africa converge, circulating counterclockwise.  These winds typically conserve a low speed and travel over the Atlantic Ocean as tropical waves, resulting in nothing more than rainfall on the terrain masses on which they hit.

Sometimes, when the water temperatures are sufficiently warm and atmospheric conditions are proper, the wind speeds raise and start to form around a center, or the eye.  Hot and damp air from the sea is then pulled up into the eye of the storm, that’s now called a tropical storm.  As the air increases it cools and humidity condenses and is released as heavy rain into the torrential winds that circulate around the eye.  The released power is pumped into the spinning cloud mass, making it increase and rotate even more quickly.  The storm has turned into a hurricane by the point the winds reach speeds of 119 kmph, equal to 74 miles per hour.

As the spinning storm moves over the ocean wind speeds boost.  Hurricanes are generally classified by the strength of their winds into five categories on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Intensity Scale.  The smallest hurricanes have wind speeds which are between 74-95 mph and so are known as Category 1 storms.  Category 1 storms result in minimal damage mainly to plants and trees. In 1992, Hurricane Andrew was Category IV storm with continual wind speeds of 140 mph.  Category V storms, like Hurricane Camille, are definitely the most powerful storms and are responsible for devastating damage.  Hurricane Camille, with sustained winds greater than 200 mph, was the strongest hurricane ever before recorded in the northern gulf coast.

Difference in wind speed is an easy way to classify storms, but hurricanes also have other uncommon features.  Some storms move rapidly and produce minimal rainfall, when others are slow and produce torrential rainfall with downfalls that oftentimes go beyond 15 inches.  One characteristic that every storm has is the location of the strongest and damaging winds.  The forward right quadrant of the hurricane is its most powerful and most harmful part. This is actually the most harmful section because the counterclockwise movement of the storm, together with its forward motion, powers it.

As the storm moves across the ocean area, it becomes a complex and tight mass of wind and rain.  The eye becomes completely obvious on satellite pictures and larger hurricanes might have an eye as huge as 35 miles in length.  The hurricane’s eye is the spot around which the winds spin and is really a peaceful area in the middle of the storm.  Lots of people are actually deceived into thinking the storm had finished once the eye passed over and were astonished when the harmful winds began once again.

Hurricanes can have and release enough power to supply electricity to the United States for just a year.  Hurricanes also carry the ocean along with them, which could provide storm surges up to 25 feet above sea level.  Often the accompanying storm surge and associated floods are responsible for a lot of the damage caused in seaside areas.  Storms follow unpredictable pathways towards land.  There isn’t any set pattern in the voyage from where they originated from Africa.  They generally shift northwesterly towards the Gulf of Mexico and eastern coasts of North and Central America.