What are the main differences between a cyclone, tornado, tsunami, and hurricane?

Question

Please include links, thanks!

Answer 1

Like the first guy said

Cyclone & hurricane are the same thing - just a different name. Tend to be called cyclone in Asia. Involves ocean water.

Answer 2

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 3

Cyclone & hurricane are the same thing - just a different name. Tend to be called cyclone in Asia. Involves ocean water.

Tornado is strictly a land event - high winds in cyclonic pattern.

Tsunami is a wave in the ocean that results from various events, including hurricane or earthquake at sea. Tsunami can be very small, only a couple inches high, or very large & devastating.

Answer 4

Hurricanes have different names in different areas, they are also known as typhoons, cyclones, and cyclonic storms. The word Typhoon is derived from the Chinese word 大風 which means Great Wind.

A tsunami is a massive wave of water which rolls into the shore area with a height of 15m +.

A tornado results from a thunderstorm. They are violent, rotating columns of air blown between 50 and 300+ mph.

The below website was very helpful.

Answer 5

A tsunami result from an under water earthquake tat forces a huge amount of water upward to form a giant wave that washes all in its path away.

A cyclone and hurricane are basically the same except for the fact that one forms in the Pacific ocean and the other in the Atlantic ocean.

A tornado is very similar to a cyclone and a hurricane except it forms over land and if it is over fresh water it is known as a water spout and if it forms in the desert it is known as a dust devil.

Answer 6

The difference between Cyclone and Hurricane is the direction at which they turn. A cyclone is below the equator and turns counter clockwise, a Hurricane is above the equator and turns clockwise. A tornado is a funnel cloud (high unstable wind) that touches ground. A tsunami is a giant wave (usually created by earthquakes).

Answer 7

A cyclone and hurricane are the same thing. They just call it cyclone in Asia. A tornado is a whirling storm, and they usually don't form over water. They're not tropical storms. A tsunami is a huge water storm.

Answer 8

Ask Mike
I am very familiar with the tsunami disaster honestly I could have cried.
cyclones are also known as typhoons
which are from Austrailia and Indian Ocean
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclones
Tornado these are violent storms
these are destructive
between 800 - 1000
a year
80 deaths and 1500 injuries.
these are funnels
also sisters if there is a set of them
I saw this in the movie Twister
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tornado
Hurricanes are like a tropical cyclone
when one occurs there is torrential rain
strong winds
These are caused from water temperature
http://www.livescience.com/Hurricanes

Answer 9

A tropical cyclone is a storm system fueled by the heat released when moist air rises and the water vapor in it condenses. The term describes the storm's origin in the tropics and its cyclonic nature, which means that its circulation is counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the southern hemisphere. Tropical cyclones are distinguished from other cyclonic windstorms such as nor'easters, European windstorms, and polar lows by the heat mechanism that fuels them, which makes them "warm core" storm systems.

Depending on their location and strength, there are various terms by which tropical cyclones are known, such as hurricane, typhoon, tropical storm, cyclonic storm and tropical depression.

Tropical cyclones can produce extremely strong winds, tornadoes, torrential rain, high waves, and storm surges. The heavy rains and storm surges can produce extensive flooding. Although their effects on human populations can be devastating, tropical cyclones also can have beneficial effects by relieving drought conditions. They carry heat away from the tropics, an important mechanism of the global atmospheric circulation that maintains equilibrium in the earth's troposphere.

Answer 10

Tsunami is a series of tidal waves that can be triggered by earthquakes, under water mud slides, underwater volcanoes, and other things. If you live near a coast line, or in low lying area, you need to be prepared to know what to do if there is a Tsunami warning, how to get to high enough ground. If you are on the beach, and you see the water draining out, like out of a bathtub. Do not walk down to see the stuff that used to be under the sea, do not stop to take pictures, run like hell away from the beach, find a sturdy tall building, and climb as high as you can because there's a wave coming real fast that will be several stories high & it is doubtful that you have the strength to hang onto a tree, and breathe under water at the same time.
http://www.tsunamiready.noaa.gov/

Hurricanes are huge storms that start over the oceans & have seasons within seasons ... they are ranked with various categories of storms where 1 is trivial, 2 is maybe survivable, 3 can kill you if you are not in shelter, 4 can destroy your shelter if it is like an automobile or trailer home, 5 can destroy many cities, you don't want to know what a 6 can do.

When the hurricane comes ashore, there is what is called a storm surge, which is like a tidal wave. The winds can also pick up small children and crash them into buildings at 100 mph.
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/

Various kinds of storms can breed tornadoes. These are funnel clouds that can pick up a semi truck and fling it miles away. When they come through a community, they generally leave a swathe of destruction, that looks like a giant bulldozer went through there & wiped out gazillian buildings. Your best chance of survival is to be in an underground shelter. There's secondary ways to survive ... get the facts from weather professionals because there's a ton of urban legends out there & most of them can kill you.

While tornados can occur anywhere in the world, the USA has most of them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tornado

Cyclones are another name used for hurricanes and tornadoes in tropical areas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_cyclone

Go to any search engine & key in WEATHER to get all kinds of links about the weather forecast any place in the world.

But sometimes we want to know about Earthquakes and Blizzards and other weather phenomina that are so spectacular that there's a name for them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Meteorology

A blizzard is an especially severe winter storm.
Normal winter might have snow falling on the ground, that someone can shovel or plow ... instead it is like hail comes down that is chunks of frozen ice the size of golf balls ... they can cripple a person, because it is like you are standing in a rain of machine gun bullets falling from the sky. Then when they hit the ground, the both melt and freeze again, so that the ground is like ice spikes sticking up, you can't walk between them, if you go out without boots that are lined with steel, you will soon get an ice knife right up your leg. Foreget about driving, unless you have a four wheel vehicle with very heavy duty chains, and a large distance between the ground and the base of your vehicle, because driving on the highway has become like driving off-the-road on very very rought terrain.

I know, because I have been in a blizzard.

NOAA is a US government agency that predicts nasty weather coming our way ... they are the agency that alerted other government agencies over 2 days in advance that Katrina was coming & that this storm was going to be one of the worst in history, so they needed to take serious action, like mass evacuation.
http://www.weather.gov/