tornadoes and hurricanes?

Question

List the major the similarities and differences between hurricanes and tornadoes.

Answer 1

Similarities:

1) Form from thunderstorms. Hurricanes are basically t-storms that develop over the ocean.

2) Create mass destruction

3) Scale of magnitude based more off of wind speed instead of size

Differences:

1) Hurricanes are predictable and trackable. Tornadoes can be predicted to the conditions, but they can not be pinpointed.

2) Hurricanes cause their damage by cause a storm surge. Tornadoes cause their damage by windspeed (ranges from 150-360+, compared with the hurricanes windspeeds of 40-150)

3) Tornadoes last from a few seconds to a few hours. Hurricanes last for days.

4) Different scales--torandoes are based on the Fujita scale while hurricanes are placed into categories.

Answer 2

What are tropical cyclones (or hurricanes or typhoons)?
They are describing the same weather system. It is just that different places in the world have the different names for this system. It is called a Hurricane over the Atlantic and eastern Pacific, a typhoon over the western Pacific and a cyclone over the Indian Ocean and Australia.

Where do tropical cyclones form around the globe?
They usually form over warm water (SST > 26.5oC) and low vertical wind shear (difference between the upper and low level wind). We can have too much shear in the tropics (Pacific Ocean) so that no storms can form. Also there could be insufficient times for enough convection to take place, and they
need lots of time for convection. In the mid latitudes the ware is too cold, and at the equator the Coriolis force is the zero vector. They need something to make it spin. The closes storm to form near the equator was 2004’s Hurricane Ivan, which formed at 8oN latitude.

Why does the amount vary from year to year?
There are year to year variability’s. So we need to look for distinguished patterns.
El Niño -- less storms from the average
La Niña -- more storms from the average
La Niña versus El Niño Hurricane Probabilities

Why hurricanes have an eye?

There are many proposed theories but there is no exact answer yet.


Tornadoes:
Frequency:
There more tornadoes during the La Niña.

What are they:
Columns of wind (which are transparent until they touch the ground (which is when they pick up dust, and become gray like or even black). They can very win diameter, from a few feet, to 3 or 4 miles. Strongest recorded is a 6 on the Fujita scale. These were evendent on dirt rings left on the ground, in areas of little to no inhabitance.

Formation location:
Form over drylines, supercell storms, or anything with a huge amounts of CAPE, and index telling us how fast potentially is the air moving vertically.

Fact: The winds of a tornado can reach higher speeds than some hurricane (sustain winds). Yet not all tornadoes can beet a hurricane. In fact an f2 is a catergory one hurricane.

There is alot to say...

Answer 3

A good question. What you are basically asking for is the meteorological conditions under which these storms may form. As an Air Force meteorologist for many years I use to watch the forecasters who specialized in tornado forecasting in Omaha, Nebraska as they worked. What they looked for was a region where warm, moist, unstable surface air coming from the south with drier, stronger, westerly air overlaying it may exist. The other thing they looked for would be the possibility of thunderstorm development or movement of thunderstorms into that same region. Where these two met and the wind shear from near the surface to cloud level was such that the thunderstorms would experience a cyclonic circulation it would be anticipated that a tornado vortex may develop. One of the major differences between this phenomena and other cyclones such as extra-tropical low pressure centers found along frontal zones, or tropical cyclones that develop into hurricanes is primarily size. The tornado cyclone is often on the scale of hundreds of meters or less. They last less than an hour and they are much more likely to form over land. The source of the circulation is wind shear. Other significant differences include a far deeper pressure, and extremely higher winds. The source of the circulation in the hurricane is also wind shear but it is horizontal wind shear while for the tornado it is vertical wind shear. The hurricane always forms over water and much of its energy souce is from the evaporation of water from a warm ocean surface and the heat of condensation released in the upper atmosphere as the water vapor condenses.

Answer 4

Hurricanes are large and develop from the water, while tornadoes develop on land, and aren't as wide.

Answer 5

easily said, a tornado is over land and a hurricane starts in the oceans over warm water.. also referred to as typoons.

Answer 6

Why not look on the internet for your own answers. You got time to be messing on Yahoo.

Answer 7

just read this.i don't feel like typing it all out. =]


http://library.thinkquest.org/C0111179/hurridiff.html

Answer 8

HURRICANES ARE NOT KEWL

Answer 9

maybe YOU should, since it appears that's YOUR assignment!

; )

Answer 10

hey! do your own homework....cheater! LOL!