Why are there typhoons in the tropical region, but not in the mid-latitudes?

Question

weather question!!

Answer 1

typhoons and hurricanes are the same thing. the only thing diffrent is where they occur. and the reason for them occuring where they do is because of the heat around the equator . They also need the cooler air to recondence in to storms and around the mid-latitudes the air is not cool enough. To give you an idea, most hurricanes that hit the US start as storms off the coast of Madigascar from the monsoons, when they get over the ocean they pick up more water, and once they hit the winds and heat of the equator with the cooler waters of the Atlantic the spining of the earth forces the winds and storms to rotate. Usually they start out as storms around the equator, but dont have fast enough winds to be declaired a hurricane or typhoon until they get above 65-70 mph.

Answer 2

Warm water,humid condition and steep lapse rate are the important requirments for the formation of the typhoons.All these are available only in the tropical regions.The details are given below.
Warm sea surface with a temperature of atleast 26.5 degree celcius upto a depth of 50 metres is required for typhoon formation .This is available only in the tropical region.
Earth receives a maximum solar radiation in the equatorial regions and minimum quantity of it in the polar regions.Further,we know that warm air can hold more moisture than a cold air.So air in the tropical regions contains more moisture .In fact,the energy of the typhoon is derived from the latent heat of condensation of this ascending moist air.The more the moisture, the stronger the storm becomes.
At the equator,the height of the tropopause is double that at the poles and therefore the lowest temperature in the atmosphere occurs in the stratospheres of the equatorial regions.That means the range between the highest temperature over the ground and the lowest temperature at the stratosphere is maximum in the equatorial regions.This again means that lapse rate(fall of temperature with height) is steep in the tropical regions resulting in strong convection currents which contributes to the intensity of the typhoons.
As these favourable conditions exist in the tropical regions, the typhoons form over these regions only.

Answer 3

The fuel for a hurricane/typhoon/tropical cyclone comes from the release of latent heat in the clouds as water vapour condenses to water droplets and water droplets freeze to ice crystals. Sufficient evaporation is required from the ocean surface to carry that heat high into the troposphere. A sea surface temperature in excess of 26°C is required to provide sufficient heat to fuel the system. These sea surface temperatures only occur in the tropics.

Answer 4

A typhoon (hurricane, cyclone) forms over warm sea water (note they lose power once they hit land). The sea has to be hotter than 26C for them to gain power, and that only happens in the tropics (but global warming may change that...)