How do hurricanes form? Hurricanes are form over a truly warm ocean water of 80 Fahrenheit/27 degree Celsius or even furnace. On top of a warm ocean water, the air cool off faster the higher it goes. The air forced to be upward from the ocean surface when the winds blow in the same direction and at the same speed. When the wind keeps on blow outward above the storm and this allow the air below to rise, if this process keep on going and between 5 to 15 degrees of latitude north and south of the equator, Hurricanes form! An additional way to say how it form is that the warm air rises, causing an area of lower air pressure below.
How do hurricanes form?
There are another factors that cause the formation of tropical storm or hurricanes, which is the location on earth. Most of the hurricanes need to form or develop around 5 degrees from the equator. Hurricanes form to be stronger and it looks like a spinning object. This is because of the earth’s rotation created a force that deflects moving objects to one side. Just imagine if an object is moving straight but the earth moves underneath, it will make the object moving to one side. This force reflection is known as Coriolis Force. Therefore, hurricanes could never be form when too near to the equator as there is no “Coriolis Force”.
On warm ocean water, it must reach the depth of at least 150 feet or 50 meters. The air from surrounding areas with higher pressure will push in to the lower pressure area, this makes the low pressure area’s air become warm and it causing moist and rises. When this process keep on going, the whole system will spins together with clouds, winds, the ocean’s heat, and the ocean water evaporating from the ocean surface. This activity continuously forms hurricanes.
Last but not least, a powerful hurricane can only form if there is some kind of atmospheric disturbance in the area around the site of its formation.
Hurricanes name and the location of it
(Please click on the image to enlarge it)
Hurricanes are most amazing violent storms. There are several names or types attached to hurricanes. These names are such as typhoons, cyclones. Typhoons usually refer to the hurricanes that form at Asia such as Japan, Taiwan, and China…etc. Cyclones are refers to storm that appear around Australia, India, South Africa, Saudi Arabia…etc. The term “Hurricanes” are refers to tropical cyclones (scientific term for all types of storms) that form over the Eastern Pacific Ocean or Atlantic Ocean.
There are total of 5 Categories of Hurricanes / Tropical Cyclone:
| Category | Wind Speed (mph) | Power to Damage | Storm Surge (feet) |
| 1 | 74-96 | Minimum | 4-5 |
| 2 | 96-110 | Moderate | 6-8 |
| 3 | 111-130 | Extensive | 9-12 |
| 4 | 131-155 | Extreme | 13-18 |
| 5 | >155 | Catastrophic | 19+ |
Look at the video of “How do hurricanes form”!
Hurricanes do rotate in a counter-clockwise direction, the center of this spinning object is known as an “eye”. The “eye” is the calmest part and has only a little winds and flaxen weather. After knowing how do hurricanes form, my feeling was, “what a scary natural scene!”
Side Info:
- It is said that Hurricane Ioke was the strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Central Pacific.
- Twister was a famous movie that talks about tornado and hurricane stuff.
Travel like local, Travel the extraordinary - There are 195 Countries in the World! How many countries have you put your footprint on the land? Angelina Soul will start this website together with people or traveler around the world, to contribute, and to fill in all the information needed from traveler around the world to this website.
