🎲

🌋 Planet Earth ⛈️ Weather and climate

Hurricanes

Hurricanes

📖 In short

A hurricane is a huge spinning storm that forms over warm tropical seas. It brings very strong winds, heavy rain and high waves, and can cause great damage when it reaches land. In the Atlantic it's called a “hurricane”, and in Asia a “typhoon”.

🤩 Did you know?

  • A hurricane can be hundreds of kilometers across.
  • In a hurricane the wind blows faster than 120 kilometers an hour.
  • The eye of a hurricane moves at 16 to 24 kilometers an hour.
  • A hurricane weakens when it reaches land, because it loses the warm sea water.

🔎 Find out more

🌟 How does it form?

Warm sea water heats the air above it, so moist air rises fast and makes huge clouds. As the Earth turns, the air starts spinning around one center, and the hurricane grows and gets stronger.

🔍 The eye of the hurricane

In the middle of a hurricane is a calm, clear area called the eye, with almost no wind or rain. But around it is a wall of clouds and wind, the fiercest part of the storm.

💡 Every hurricane has a name

Weather scientists give each hurricane a name, like a person's name, so it's easy to talk about and warn people.

🎯 Warnings save lives

Scientists watch hurricanes with satellites and special planes and warn people days before they arrive, so they can leave the coasts for safe places.

📸 More pictures

Hurricanes
Hurricanes

🧩 Test yourself

1 What is the calm area in the middle of a hurricane called?

2 Where do hurricanes form?

3 In a hurricane the wind blows faster than ?? kilometers an hour.

4 Which picture shows “Hurricanes”?

🌋 Discover more

📷 Picture sources: Wikimedia Commons