Hurricanes in the USA: What’s actually going on?

For those who read the news, this article may be redundant. For those who don’t read the news, you’ll hopefully have already been informed by social media or word of mouth that Eastern U.S.A and the Caribbean are currently being battered and devastated by the worst hurricanes they have encountered in decades. But amidst all the rush and hysteria, it is difficult to know what’s actually going on. Hint: it’s bad.

The eye of a hurricane (Credit: NASA)

The Atlantic Hurricane season

In America and the Caribbean, they have what’s known as ‘hurricane season’. This doesn’t actually mean anything – hurricanes can form at any time of the year; it’s just the period of the year when hurricanes are most likely to form. It starts on June 1 and ends on November 30, usually peaking late August-early September (i.e., now).

Why all the different names?

Across the world, a ‘storm’ is known by various different names. ‘Hurricane’, ‘cyclone’ and ‘typhoon’ all mean the same thing, just in different places of the globe. Scientifically, there’s one thing you need to know. A ‘tropical cyclone’ is a general term used to describe a storm. If the winds are under 74mph, it is known as a tropical storm. When winds reach over 74mph, it is then known as a hurricane (or any of those three terms).

What is a hurricane?

A hurricane is a rapidly rotating storm system that generates extremely strong winds. They usually form over large bodies of water.

How they form:

1.      The sun heats vast areas of ocean

2.      The heat causes water to evaporate and form clouds

3.      The water continues to evaporate, forming more clouds

4.      The clouds are eventually met by winds that form in a circular motion around the clouds

5.      The hot air caused by evaporating water provides energy for the clouds which creates a storm

After the tropical cyclone becomes a tropical storm (i.e. reaches winds of over 39 mph), it gets given a name (e.g. Storm Bernard).

Why is this year so major?

Over the last week or two, you’ve probably heard a plethora of names and like me, don’t get who’s where and what’s who.

Hurricane Harvey

Hurricane Harvey was the first hurricane that hit world news this year, but it’s now finished. It formed on the 17^th August and dissipated on the 2^nd September, and incredibly, it was the first major hurricane in the USA since 2005. Major hurricanes are classed as category three or higher. Hurricane categories are based solely on wind speed, not rainfall or any other factors.

Category	Speed
1	74-95mph	Power outages for days, some trees toppled, damage to roofs
2	96-110	Day-week power loss, fallen trees on roads
3	111-129	Roofs will be lost, no electricity or water for weeks
4	130-156	Walls and roofs destroyed, power out for weeks and months
5	157 +	Power shortages for months, destroyed homes, uprooted trees, uninhabitable

Harvey reached a maximum wind speed of 130mph, making it a category 4 hurricane.

Hurricane Harvey was the one you may have heard about affecting Texas. 30,000 people were displaced from their homes and 300,000 lost electricity. 71 people died. The coverage on news websites focused a lot on the capital city Houston, which saw catastrophic floods due to non-stop torrential rain which left roads flooded in metres of water. Boats had to be sent out by the police to rescue people from cars stranded floating in the water. It was the wettest month in Houston since records began in 1892, more than doubling the previous record set in 2001.

Hurricane Irma

Hurricane Irma is the hurricane in the news at the moment. It’s been making its way through the Caribbean and is scheduled to hit Florida, hence all those ‘evacuate’ and ‘get out of Florida’ warnings you may have seen or heard about. I, without much common sense, assumed that the hurricane was going to be travelling east or come from within the country – which is stupid considering the water has to come from the sea. Hopefully I’m not the only one. But hurricanes form near the equator as that’s where water is hottest – and hurricanes that hit America are usually formed in the Atlantic Ocean and pushed along by westerly winds coming from near Africa. That’s what all those balloon shaped graphs show.

Irma has so far reached a maximum speed of 185 mph (a lot worse than Harvey), making it a category five hurricane, and the second fastest ever recorded in the Atlantic. It sustained the 185 mph winds for 37 hours straight, and is now classed as a category four. 23 people are yet known to have died as of 00:00 GMT on Saturday 9^th September.

Key: The red arrow is the path Irma has taken, from where it started in the Atlantic Ocean. It is travelling west towards Florida. The yellow arrow is the islands of Antigua and Barbuda, where Irma has caused most devastation so far. The blue arrow is the current position of the hurricane, and the orange arrow is south florida, where the hurricane is predicted to hit on Sunday around 8am (GMT 12pm).

Irma has already caused mass destruction on its path through the Caribbean. The island of Barbuda has been completely destroyed and many other islands have had homes destroyed, are now uninhabitable and practically useless. FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) have warned people in South Florida to evacuate as soon as possible and that the hurricane could hit the coast as a category 5. It is twice the size of the last mass-destructive hurricane to hit Florida, Andrew in 1992.

Both the governor of Florida Rick Scott and the head of FEMA have been talking. The latter says that the hurricane could ‘devastate the U.S.’ and Scott has starkly warned people to get out as they are ‘running out of time’.  It is expected to hit Florida this weekend.

Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Harvey are not linked – they’re just two very strong hurricanes that happened to develop at around the same time.

Hurricane José

The final one you’ve probably heard of is Hurricane Jose. Jose is further out into the Atlantic than Irma, but is still a category 4. It is not likely to affect the U.S.A but is heading full force at the already-devastated Barbuda and is likely to hit within 36 hours, and the government is trying to evacuate the entire country.

The path of Hurricane José. The numbers refers to the category of the hurricane when it reaches that point – e.g. ‘4’ indicates the hurricane will be category 4. Barbuda is situated underneath where the second ‘4’ is located. (From CNN)

Other news

Nearer Mexico, Hurricane Katia is a category 2, but is more likely to result in heavy rain than wind and not leave any lasting damage.

Mexico also experienced their worst earthquake in 100 years on September 7^th. It reached 8.1 on the Richter scale, and 58 people are reported to have died so far.

With some of the worst floods and hurricanes seen in the U.S.A in years, the clean-up operation is expected to take months and cost billions of pounds. And the damage isn’t yet over.