What is the difference between a Hurricane and a Tornado?

Question

Everyone keeps telling me that a Hurricane isn't a funnel cloud and I always thought that the only difference between a Hurricane and a Tornadowas that a Hurricane is tropical and forms over water and that a Tornado fromed over land, could someone please fill me in?

Answer 1

I think you are correct ... at least that's what I always thought. A Hurricane has rotation just like a tornado, but forms over water.

**************

HURRICANES AND TORNADOES

What's the difference?

Hurricanes and tornadoes both form in warm, damp air when winds blow into each other from opposite directions. Hurricanes develop over warm, tropical oceans, while tornadoes form over land and are more violent. In a hurricane, the winds swirl around in a spiral at up to 200 mph. In the middle is a calm "eye" 4 - 25 miles wide, surrounded by the worst wind and driving rain.

A tornado is a tall, funnel-shaped whirlwind of cloud up to 2,000 feet high. In the middle is an eye of descending air, surrounded by a strong upward current that sucks up or destroys everything in its path. Tornadoes can travel hundreds of miles before they die down.

Now you know!


http://www.mmem.spschools.org/grade5science/weather/hurricanevstornado.html

Answer 2

Tornadoes occur in most parts of the world. However they are most frequent over the continental plains of the USA.

Tornadoes are typically identified as a funnel of spiraling air descending from the base of clouds to the earth. The tornado is usually narrow, about 1/2 km wide and rarely does it move more than 20 km.

Like hurricanes the precise mechanism of how the funnel forms in not understood.

Hurricane

Tropical Storms start within 8º and 15º north and south of the equator where surface sea temperatures reach 27ºC. The air above the warm sea is heated and rises. This causes low pressure.


The weather system generates heat which powers the storm, causing wind speeds to increase. This causes the Tropical Storm to sustain itself. Tropical storms rely on plenty of warm, moist air from the sea - this is why they die out over land.

The central part of the tropical storm is known as the eye. The eye is usually between 30-50km across. It is an area of calm, with light winds and no rain. It contains descending air. Large cumulonimbus clouds surround the eye. These are caused by moist air condensing as it rises. Wind speeds average 160km per hour around the eye.

Answer 3

The biggest difference is the size. A Hurricane is many miles across. A tornado is usually less than a mile across, you can see it. A tornado looks like a funnel that extends from the cloud to the ground. A hurricane looks like an ordinary storm when you are in it, but looks like a swirl looking down from a satellite.

Try Google images for pictures of each.

Answer 4

Hurricane, Cyclone and Typhoon are the same phenomenon only called by those different terms in different regions of the world. Hurricane is use in America, Typhoon in Asia, Cyclone (or Tropical Cyclone) in Australia and the South Pacific. Cyclones/Typhoons/Hurricanes are usually borne over warm tropical waters and dissipate some time after they make landfall over a continent. A Tornado is born over land and causes damage in a very tight corridor at much higher speeds. A tornado can arrive as quickly as it departs. Note: Hurricanes and Typhoons rotate the in the opposite direction to Cyclones (which are a southern hemisphere thing).

Answer 5

Hurricanes cause much much more damage and deaths than tornadoes. Hurricanes are storms that form over the tropic, they can be thousands of km in diameter. They pound storm surges, which causes most of the damage, flooding rain, and damaging winds. They can also cause tornadoes.

Tornadoes are funnels that touch the ground, they are only hundreds of meters wide with stronger winds, but no rain nor water. Tornadoes happen inside severe thunderstorms, the thunderstorms themselves may cause damage. So hurricanes exist on their on, they are a storm. Tornadoes exist inside a storm, they aren't a storm themselves.

Also, a tornado over water is called a waterspout.

Despite the fact that tornadoes pack stronger winds than hurricanes, hurricanes are much more deadly, why?

1. Tornadoes are famous for their winds, in hurricanes, winds aren't the headline
2. In hurricanes, storm surges and torrential rain are the main concern, in tornadoes, there aren't any of that.
3. Hurricanes occupy a much larger area than tornadoes.

Answer 6

add to all your answers that a hurricane begins in the sea from the warmer ocean currents and a tornado on land from a mixture of warm and cold airs. A hurricane can spawn tornadoes once it hits land. A hurricane although dangerous, is not as dangerous at sea as it is on land.

Answer 7

You may be thinking of a tornado and a waterspout. A waterspout is a tornado that forms or travels over water and picks up an enormous whirling column of water.

(That thought gives me the willies! I can see a column of dust and dirt in the air, but water is HEAVY and it makes you realize how powerful and dangerous those things are!)

Tornadoes form when there is a 'temperature inversion' with a layer of hot air (wanting to rise) trapped under a layer of cold air (wanting to sink.) There is a 'discontinuity', a sudden slip, and they begin spiraling past one another.

(Imagine a layer of water on top of a layer of oil, in a clear bottle where you could watch what happens. Try inverting a bottle of oil-and -vinegar salad dressing. You may not be able to invert it smoothly enough to watch it sit still for a while before it 'breaks' and they spiral past each other, But you can see it begin, just as you turn it upside down.)

Hurricanes, on the other hand, are formed over water, and they derive their power from hot wet air. That is why they lose power once they move on to land.

I hope this tells you what you wanted to know. Good luck!

Answer 8

Both are technically similar. Both are the results of a low pressure. A tornado is a very local low pressure point, drawing air inward and up. Because the cyclonic effect is very short (small circle), winds are accelerated to a high velocity.

A hurricane is still a cyclone, but its area is much larger and as such, its winds are slower, but over a much larger area.

Both circulate counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere - having to do with the rotation of the earth (long explanation).

I hope this helps.

Answer 9

Hurricane, big tropical storm from the sea. Tornado, formed from funnel cloud, usually made on land.

Answer 10

A hurricane IS a funnel cloud. It's that it's so powerful that centrifugal force widens the eye to miles across. A tornado's eye is usually measured in yards, but is as destructive because of the focusing effect of damage.

Answer 11

Tornado is a funnel cloud. Hurricane is a storm.