Probably, all of us have already heard more than once that somewhere in our country or beyond its borders a great hurricane swept and caused a huge amount of trouble, breaking power lines, uprooting century-old trees, demolishing roofs from buildings and knocking down billboards.
Have you ever thought about what hurricanes are, how they are formed and what power they have?
Let's try to figure it out together.
Section 1. What are hurricanes? general information
A typhoon or a hurricane is a strong wind that can blow for a long time at a speed exceeding 32 m / s.
It is a vortex, whose characteristic feature is the reduced atmospheric pressure observed inside - in the so-called "core".
By the way, in practice, tropical cyclones, which are characteristic mainly of South and North America, are called hurricanes.
It is believed that the usual storm for us turns into a hurricane if the wind speed exceeds 120 km / h. And with a strong typhoon, it sometimes reaches 180 km / h.
It should be noted that the most powerful and destructive winds, as a rule, arise on the coast. They often not only sweep away everything in their path, but also form huge waves that crash ashore.
In principle, this type of precipitation is formed exclusively in tropical latitudes and only above the surface of the ocean. This automatically means that the deeper we are on the territory of the mainland, the less our chances of becoming a hostage to the elements.
It is difficult to single out any one reason for the formation of such a strong wind. Firstly, this is the difference in atmospheric pressure or temperature of different layers of the atmosphere, and secondly, the planet's rotation force also plays a significant role in what is happening.
However, it should be noted that neither a typhoon nor a hurricane are formed until the water surface warms up to at least 27 ° C.
Section 2. What are hurricanes? The most devastating hurricane in US history
By the way, in the USA hurricanes are usually given purely female names. Moreover, this is done in alphabetical order, starting, of course, with the letter "A". Every year the situation repeats, which means that after spending some time, an inquisitive person can find out what kind of hurricane has hit the country in a given period of time.
Throughout history, one of the most destructive is considered to be Katrina. According to a special Saffir-Simpson scale, this hurricane was assigned the highest 5th category. The element played out at the very end of August 2005. According to estimates, the most severe damage was done to the US state of Louisiana, namely its capital, New Orleans. In almost a few hours, 80% of the city found itself under water, nearly 2,000 people died, and economic damage as a whole amounted to $ 125 billion.
Section 3. What are hurricanes? Can they be in our latitudes ?
Based on the definition, hurricanes are quite rare on the mainland. And this is perhaps not surprising, because formed on the surface of the ocean, this element, as a rule, in most cases falls on the coast.
What we can observe, say, in Moscow, St. Petersburg or Kiev, is most likely called a “flurry” or “hurricane wind”, which, fortunately, is far from a real hurricane.
This is more real for the coastal zones of the Black Sea. For example, the April hurricane in Crimea managed to cause trouble for both local residents and numerous vacationers. The wind at a speed of 30 meters per second managed to break the trees, destroy the fences of the Shevchenko park in Yalta, tear down and tear down billboards.
Fortunately, there were no casualties.