Hurricanes, storms and tornadoes (tornadoes) causes and consequences, classes, behavior

There are many names and some divisions of storms, hurricanes and tornadoes. They can be called completely different in some specific places. The same navigators call all three winds a storm, since there are no special differences for them.

To more accurately and effectively learn about the hallmarks of destructive winds, it is worth reading the information given below:

Hurricane

A hurricane, if we consider the term itself fully, is a wind that is capable of speeds above 30 meters per second. In the tropical climate zone of the Pacific Ocean, this phenomenon is often called a typhoon. The wind can be different, depending on the hemisphere of the globe: in the northern part of the planet, the hurricane always blows counterclockwise, but in the southern part clockwise.

An interesting article on the topic “Why does the wind blow“

Hurricanes are rated at 12 points on the Beaufort scale, the speed reaches over 120 kilometers per hour, and “life” lasts about 9-12 days, after which the wind dissipates, leaving behind a lot of destruction. An interesting fact is that for convenience, weather scientists assign their own name to each hurricane. Previously, these were only female names, but long-term protests by feminists considered this oppression on the part of scientific figures, due to which this unspoken rule was canceled.

Storm

A storm is similar to a hurricane, but has a lower speed 15-20 m/s. Because of this, the devastation from storms is much less than from their “fast brothers”. If a storm appears on the water, sailors call it a storm. Another difference between a storm and a hurricane is the duration, because due to its low speed, the storm dissipates in just a few hours or days.

Tornado (tornado)

A tornado (it is also called a tornado) is one of the most terrible in appearance winds. It is twice as slow as a hurricane, one and a half as slow as a storm, but all this is offset by a frightening shape. A tornado is much narrower than a hurricane or storm, which makes it more like an expanding funnel from earth to sky, thereby immediately causing horror in the eyes of people who see this phenomenon. Even more fear can be caused by the fact that a typhoon and a storm brings precipitation along with its appearance, and a tornado, in turn, forms along with a thundercloud.

Causes

There are a huge number of versions about the cause of the raging winds that destroy everything in their path. Even at this stage in the development of science, scientists do not have enough information to confidently declare certain conditions. Mankind knows that a hurricane almost always has the correct rounded shape, and in its diameter the hurricane surpasses all other winds and can reach eight hundred kilometers. During the formation of a pipe from warm air, an “eye” appears in the center this is an untouched space around which the wind spins at high speed. Next comes the most dangerous place the “wall”. It is in it that the formation and main riot of tropical air takes place.

Due to the fact that hurricanes affect the atmosphere in the area and make it somewhat unstable, a sharp change in climatic conditions begins in the approximate area and a lot of precipitation falls on the ground. A hurricane occurs due to a pressure drop when a high is replaced by a low, although this is not typical for tropical regions. Warm air is not able to combine with low pressure and because of this, a funnel is formed, the air increases its speed. Maintaining shape and speed depends on the amount of moist air that rises above the surface of the water.

What are dangerous hurricanes, storms, tornadoes

People are afraid of funnels because of their size, appearance and frightening speed. They think it’s impossible to survive if you get in the way of such a fast wind. But what is actually worse is not the hurricane itself, but its consequences. Due to changes in climatic conditions, there is a sharp and uncharacteristic for the regions precipitation: downpours that can flood cars and houses; during the formation of a funnel on the water, a storm appears that destroys many ships and causes floods that can demolish entire cities; strong winds in snowy areas or in winter cause a huge number of avalanches that take the lives of hundreds of people with them; sand storms appear in the sandy area.

The devil is not as terrible as he is painted this is exactly how the Russian proverb sounds, which is in some way true even in relation to natural disasters. The devastation that occurs due to strong winds is frightening, no one argues with this, but you need to understand that precipitation in this case is much worse.

Classification of hurricanes and storms

Hurricanes are divided into extratropical and tropical. The latter are called those winds that are formed in the territory of a tropical climate, extratropical in extratropical, respectively. In addition, there is a division into a more specific place of origin the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean. Those that begin to form over the Pacific Ocean are called typhoons.

As such, storms do not have a classification, but they are often divided into two main groups: stream and eddy. Stream phenomena are called phenomena with a small diameter, they do not pose any particular problems and dissipate rather quickly. Vortex storms, in turn, have three more subdivisions: snow, squall and dust. As their name suggests, snowstorms form in winter or in snowy regions. in Eurasia, people call this phenomenon a snowstorm, snowstorm or snowstorm. Sandstorms also live up to their name and occur in places with a lot of sand, such as deserts.

Squall storms are the most sudden of the rest, often lasting only a few minutes before dissipating immediately. It is these storms that are the safest compared to other winds.

A tornado is a whirlwind, which consists of fast air rotating around a certain area. Tornadoes contain many particles of sand, dust and other elements. In terms of size, this form of vortex is the smallest, but the speed of rotation of air inside the tornado is much greater than that of other funnels, which is why, in terms of its destructiveness in a limited area, the tornado is the most dangerous. The formation of a tornado often entails the appearance of a thunderstorm, hail or very heavy rain.

Differences between a hurricane and a tornado

Effects

Of the main consequences of hurricanes and storms, one can single out the devastation that the wind itself brings with it and the precipitation that falls during its movement. The most destructive, without a doubt, is a tornado, because it is in this form that the wind is able to reach the highest rotational speed. A hurricane can stretch over a very long distance, sucking several hundred kilometers into its center without any problems, but the wind is not strong enough to bring catastrophic devastation. The difference between a hurricane and a tornado is that after a tornado there is a trace in the center, and a hurricane does not have a similar.

The most powerful tornadoes, storms and hurricanes in Eurasia

Due to the peculiarities of climatic conditions on the territory of Eurasia, there were no such strong hurricanes as in other parts of the world, but nevertheless, several destructive winds still passed. The development of infrastructure and the construction of factories contribute to the more frequent formation of fast winds, so their appearance has become more frequent recently.

A rather strong hurricane passed through the middle zone of Eurasia in 1984. Gusts of wind near it could reach 27 meters per second, and this, when compared with something understandable, is the speed of an old-style passenger train. Because of this, the trees in various parks were uprooted along with the roots, and this is only a minimum of the devastation that the hurricane did at that time. In the end, the inhabitants of many regions died, for example, Yaroslavl or the Chuvash Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.

Fourteen years later, on the night of June 21, 1998, a hurricane again hit Moscow and its region, which took the lives of eight people, and also crippled more than 150 ordinary people. The wind speed this time was 4 meters per second higher and was about 31 m/s in the peak zones. More than two thousand buildings of various sizes and importance were partially or completely destroyed, the final damage amounted to more than one billion rubles.

In the period from 2001 to 2007, about 20 hurricanes were recorded in the country, each of which took the lives of the most ordinary, innocent people, destroyed buildings on which the human hand worked, and interfered with the development of infrastructure. Recently, there has been no particular increase in hurricanes, but winds over 20 meters per second, which is already a harbinger of the imminent appearance of a funnel, happen very often. This is also facilitated by the release of various gases into the atmosphere, which occur due to the operation of factories and the lack of proper filtration equipment.

The most powerful tornadoes, storms and hurricanes in the world

Throughout history, the world has experienced a huge number of tornadoes, storms and hurricanes of various calibers. Some were completely invisible and dispersed in a couple of minutes, while others, in turn, took hundreds and thousands of lives. Below are the five most famous hurricanes in history, but it is not known how many actually happened:

1. “San Calixto” is a hurricane raging in the late 18th century. It formed over the Caribbean archipelago and led to the death of about twenty-seven thousand people. Witnesses of this terrible spectacle claimed that the howling of the wind completely interrupted the death cries of people. As a result of this hurricane, more than 20 ships were destroyed, the British fleet was destroyed, and only more than 4.5 thousand people died on Barbados, and no one knows about full quantities.
2. “Galveston”. The beginning of the 1900s, Texas, a strong wind began to accelerate quickly and soon developed to 215 kilometers per hour (4 category in the classification of hurricanes). According to the calculations of researchers and witnesses, this disaster was the worst over the entire time of the United States, and it claimed more than six thousand people, and also destroyed about 3.5 thousand houses.
3. Hurricane “Camilla” is the wind that almost everyone who lived in the late 60s and early 70s has heard about. The speed of wind in its peak position could reach 310 km per hour, the height of the waves caused by this very wind 7 or even 8 meters. Although not many people died, unlike many other disasters, the mouth of the Mississippi River became lifeless and empty, because the waves demolished all the buildings.
4. “Bhola” this raging wind passed through the territory of Bangladesh and India, and the deaths in it, according to various estimates, vary from 250 to 500 thousand people. Despite the number of victims, the speed and strength of the hurricane is rated as a third category, but the precipitation caused the flooding of several cities.
5. Nina is a super typhoon that raged in 1975 in China. The floods caused by this funnel were so terrible that they took more than 240 thousand lives with them.

Behavior during hurricanes, storms and tornadoes

“If a hurricane finds you in a building, move away from windows and take a safe place against interior walls, closets, hallways, bathrooms, pantries, toilets, sturdy cabinets, under tables. Put out the fire in the stoves, turn off the electricity, close the taps on the gas networks.

At night, use lamps, lanterns, candles; turn on the radio to receive information from the emergency situations and civil defense department and the commission for emergency situations, if possible, be in a deep shelter, in shelters, cellars, and so on. If the storm, hurricane or tornado found you on the streets of the village, stay as far away from light buildings, bridges, buildings, overpasses, power lines.

Try to take refuge faster in basements, cellars and antiradiation shelters that are in settlements. Do not go into damaged buildings, as they can collapse with new gusts of wind.” all this says the website of the EMERCOM of Eurasia, and better recommendations are unlikely to find.

Protection of the population from hurricanes and storms

In order to avoid panic and other incidents that may arise during an emergency, in most educational institutions, from primary schools, children are instilled in the basic safety rules. Since hurricanes are not such a frequent disaster in our region, the younger generation is not trained in some special measures, but in certain countries there are special ways of protection.

However, after receiving a storm warning, the Ministry of Emergency Situations and other government services begin protective measures:

There are probably other measures that are known only in specialized services and used as needed, but the main activities were listed above. The government is also making every effort to take measures to strengthen buildings in order to reduce possible damage from hurricanes, storms and tornadoes, as well as other natural disasters. Among other things, public services are doing their best to maintain power lines and communications so that each person has the opportunity to contact loved ones or ask for help by calling the Ministry of Emergencies.

Interesting facts about hurricanes and tornadoes

Naturally, a hurricane is an element that can destroy everything in its path and take many lives, so there can be no interest in this phenomenon, because it at least violates moral principles. But even so, a few interesting facts that you should know about at least for the sake of developing erudition can be read below:

1. Despite all the destructiveness, it is thanks to hurricanes that the threat of drought in certain areas is reduced, as well as weak trees that have been poisoned or already too old are uprooted and do not interfere with the growth of others, younger and healthier.
2. The waves of a typhoon that has formed or moved to the water are capable of subsequently throwing tons of fish onto the coast. Unfortunately, it is not suitable for consumption, therefore it is only animal waste.
3. The very word “hurricane” originates from the divine pantheon of the Caribs, who in the past inhabited the islands of the Caribbean, it comes from the name of the evil god Hurikan, who, at his whim, could descend from heaven and destroy entire cities.
4. The fastest hurricane in history is the Hurricane of Camilla, which accelerated in the peak zone to 310-320 kilometers per hour. For comparison, this is about 84 meters per second, a person will simply tear out if he falls under such a wind at least without protective equipment.