Wx Savvy | Hurricanes

What Is A Hurricane?

A Hurricane, Cyclone and Typhoon are all the same thing!

They have different names depending on where in the world you find them. For instance, what we in America call a Hurricane is called a Typhoon in the Pacific if it's near Japan or the Philippines. And it's called a cyclone in the Indian Ocean for those who live in India, Bangladesh or Australia.

(Hurricane Bonnie)

A hurricane is basically a huge storm. But in order to be officially considered a hurricane the sustained winds must be 74 MPH or greater. As the winds increase it is classified as a category 1 through 5 hurricane. This scale below is called the Saffir-Simpson scale and shows the potential damage with the varying categories of hurricanes.

Category	Winds (mph)	Potential Damage
1	74-95	Damage to trees and shrubs. Some coastal Flooding
2	96-110	Damage to roofs, doors, piers, and coastal flooding
3	111-130	Damage to small homes, destroys mobile homes
4	131-155	Massive evacuation may be needed, Lower floors will have severe structure damage
5	Greater than 155	Your roof can now join the NASCAR circuit, need I say more?

There have only been three Category 5 hurricanes to hit the US this Century; Hurricane Camille (1969), The 1935 "Labor Day" Hurricane that hit the Florida Keys and Hurricane Andrew (1992).

Before a storm becomes a hurricane, it is first a Tropical Depression.

Tropical Depression: Maximum sustained winds of 23 to 39 MPH. This is basically the first point where a complex of thunderstorms starts to organize and circulate around a central low pressure point. At this point the storm will given a number in order of how it forms. If it is the 7th Tropical depression, it will be called T.D. 7 (Note this is only for Atlantic Basin Storms).

Tropical Storm: Maximum sustained winds between 39 MPH and 74 MPH. At this point the storm will be given a name based on alphabetical order of a pre-set list of names.