what is the difference between a hurricane and a tornado?

Answer 1

Both hurricanes and tornadoes are rotating air masses. The difference is in size. Hurricanes have a diameter of several hundred miles while that of tornadoes is a few to a few hundred feet.

Hurricanes do start over tropical oceans. Tornadoes usually start over land but have been observed on water. A tornado at sea sucks up water into its column and is then called a water spout.

Hurricanes do in fact occur in the Pacific Ocean. Near the west coast of the Americas they are still called hurricanes but near Asia they are called typhoons. These storms also occur in the Indian Ocean where they are referred to as cyclones.

Answer 2

A hurricane is a tropical revolving storm. It is a synoptic scale system that can be hundreds of kilometres in diameter. They form on the equatorial trough over warm oceans and move towards higher latitudes. Hurricanes last for days, sometimes weeks. They are called hurricanes in the Atlantic and eastern Pacific, typhoons in the South China Sea and tropical cyclones in the Indian ocean and south Pacific.

A tornado is generated in a severe thunderstorm. A severe thunderstom is a mesoscale system a few tens of kilometres in diameter. A tornado is a vortex extending from the cloud to the ground and is tens of metres in diameter. Tornadoes have been recorded in every country in the world, even in Antarctica, they are not limited to the tropics. Tornadoes last minutes rather than days and 30 minutes would be a long-lasting tornado.

Tornadoes can produce stronger winds than hurricanes and over small areas are more destructive but the systems are very different.

Answer 3

I will start with the simplest of the two. The tornado is formed when horizontal wind at different elevations is blowing at different directions.. example:lower winds may be blowing south to north and the upper winds blowing west to east. This is called wind shear. This along with unstable air, or that which is volitile or bouyant (like a bouy in the water), causes a horizontal roll (fast moving like a tunnel). This is what dips down and creates the funnel cloud we see in the sky during severe weather. Its not a tornado until it reaches the ground.
A Hurricane: You may have noticed on the weather reports, a High is usually associated with clear sunny days, and a Low is associated with cloudy and rainy days. The stronger the Low, the bigger the storm because the less pressure that is being pushed down toward the earth. (High pressure is pushing down toward the earth and isnt allowing any moisture to go up to create clouds, the low means there is low pressure or not alot of pressure so it allows moisture or water vapor to rise and create clouds). Out in the warm ocean a Low pressure storm will develop, as it gets stronger and feeds on the warm water the winds in the rotating Low get stronger. When winds reach 74 mph its classified as a Hurricane. When it reaches land, the terrain causes turbulance which weakens the storm back to a basic Low pressure system like you see every day as rain storms on land.

Answer 4

A hurricane is caused by water, mostly in warm ocean climates, like Florida/Gulf of Mexico. A tornado is caused by a collision of unstable air, more commonly in the mid-west/southern mid-west area. Most of the tornado's are caused in this area from a frontal system coming down from Canada and when it comes south it collides with the frontal systems coming off the Atlantic Ocean causing the area most commonly know as Tornado Alley (Kansas, Oklahoma, ets.) the Hurricanes are from clouds forming over the warm ocean (atlantic) into a front that pick's up and gain's energy from the ocean as it moves towards land. That is why when a hurricane hits land, it lets everything out and loses power as it moves. Also, hurricanes are not known in the Pacific Ocean due to the cold ocean climate.

Answer 5

hurricanes from in tropical weather and as they move over the ocean they gain power they become stronger and much more destructive.

tornados form from clouds can bad weather. they create a funnel and spin at fast speeds. and they go away faster. hurricanes move more slowly but are still as powerful

Answer 6

Hurricanes are caused by two air currents (one warm, one cold) mixing together over a large body of water, and then they move onto land. Tornadoes are born on land.

Answer 7

hurricane is a massive storm with lots of water, only areas by ocean get those and tornado is the cloud touching the ground and spins and usually hits the Midwest, central, southern planes and Florida.

Answer 8

okay if you really don't know........ a hurricane starts on water and usually comes with heavy rains and a tornado is on land. Both are very destrutive.

Answer 9

a hurricane shakes the ground, a tornato is a funnel cloud that rips through the town

~Oops I was thining of earth quake, not hurricane!

Answer 10

the way the wind blows

tornado - the wind blows round and round and concentrated in a relitivly small area at one time but moves around

hurricane - wind blows straight and covers a large area

in simplified terms