What makes hurricanes so powerful and destructive?

The word hurricane comes from the Caribbean demon Hurican, and it is also said that Hurakan, one of the creation gods in Mayan mythology, is the god of thunderstorms and cyclones. The word typhoon comes from Typhon, the son of Gaia, the mother of the earth in Greek mythology. It is a monster with a hundred faucets, and it is said that its child is a terrible gale. As for the Chinese word "typhoon", some people say that it originated from Japanese, and some people say that the pronunciation of "gale" in Cantonese from China was translated into typhoon again after it was spread abroad. In the past, there were frequent storms along the southeast coast of China, which were called "gale" by local fishermen and later became typhoons.

***18 satellite images of hurricanes

Typhoon Hurricane

Both hurricanes and typhoons refer to tropical cyclones with wind speeds of over 33m/s, but they have different names because of their different regions. Strong tropical cyclones generated in the northwest Pacific Ocean and the South China Sea are called "typhoons"; Generated in the Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea and the eastern part of the North Pacific Ocean, it is called "hurricane"; What is generated in the Indian Ocean, the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal is called a "whirlwind". Hurricanes can release amazing energy in one day. Hurricanes and tornadoes cannot be confused. The latter's time is very short, and it is an instantaneous outbreak, and the longest is no more than a few hours. The former is at sea. In addition, tornadoes are usually accompanied by hurricanes. The biggest feature of tornado is that when it appears, it often has one or several funnel-shaped cloud columns like "elephant nose", accompanied by storms, lightning or hail. When a tornado passes through the water, it can absorb water and rise to form a water column, and then connect with the cloud, commonly known as "dragon taking water" or "dragon taking water". When passing through land, houses are often rolled down and even people are sucked into the air.

classification of grades

Note: The "maximum sustained wind speed" in the following refers to the one-minute sustained wind speed (kts) adopted by JTWC, and other unit values are converted by this standard.

level 1: the maximum sustained wind speed is 33–42 m/s 74–95 mph 64–82 kts 119–153 km/h

storm surge: 4–5 ft 1.2–1.5 m

the lowest air pressure in the center: 28.94 inHg 98 mbar

Potential damage: no damage to the building. Some coasts will be flooded and small docks will be damaged.

Typical hurricane: Hurricane Agnes–Hurricane Danny–Hurricane gaston–Hurricane Ophelia

Secondary: Maximum sustained wind speed: 43–49 m/s 96–11 mph 83–95 kts 154–177 km/h

Storm surge: 6–8 ft 1.8–2.4 m

. Floods may break through unprotected berths, threatening docks and boats.