Harvey, Irma & Possibly Jose
Part I
The difference between a hurricane, a typhoon and a cyclone is the region of origin from which the storm originates. What makes them alike? They are all horrifically powerful storms that can bring incredible damage and loss of life to anyone who encounters them no matter what culture, belief structure, socio-economic structure or celebrity status…it doesn’t matter who you are, if you are in the path of one of these storms, then evacuate and hope for the best after the event is over. Basically, “Hurricanes, cyclones, and typhoons are all the same weather phenomenon; we just use different names for these storms in different places. In the Atlantic and Northeast Pacific, the term “hurricane” is used. The same type of disturbance in the Northwest Pacific is called a “typhoon” and “cyclones” occur in the South Pacific and Indian Ocean,” (National Ocean Services: https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/cyclone.html). Here in the United States we call these massive damaging storms hurricanes and early data on the storms started being gathered in 1851. Then, the storms took on the names of the communities that were closest to the place where the storm made landfall or some other point of reference like a holiday. As an example, the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, which was the deadliest hurricane in U.S. history (over 8000 killed) or the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 which was the most powerful recorded storm to make landfall in the United States. Today, storms are named using short one or two syllable names in order to make communication and warnings clear and easy to understand. “The National Hurricane Center does not control the naming of storms, instead, a strict procedure has been established by an international committee of the World Meteorological Organization. For Atlantic hurricanes, there is a list of names for each of six years. In other words, one list is repeated every seventh year. The only time that there is a change is if a storm is so deadly or costly that the future use of its name on a different storm would be inappropriate for obvious reasons of sensitivity. If that occurs, then at an annual meeting by the committee…the offending name is stricken from the list and another name is selected to replace it,” (National Hurricane Center).
The hurricane season in the United States runs from June 1st through November 30th, these dates are a general guide as this time has the greatest frequency of storm occurrences. Hurricanes that threaten the Eastern seaboard of the United States typically form off the coast of North Africa as storm systems begin to develop. These storms are then swept westward by the various trade winds that dictate the storm’s path. These storm systems can blow themselves out long before they reach land or they can gather strength and wind speed as they traverse the Atlantic Ocean. A tropical storm reaches hurricane status (typhoon or cyclone depending where you live) once the storm maintains wind speeds greater than 74 mph…currently as I type this, Hurricane Irma has wind speeds clocking at 180 mph, well above the threshold of the minimum winds for a Category 5 hurricane. Due to the erratic nature of hurricanes, they are incredibly challenging to predict, if one were to watch a weather report and look at the predicted track of a hurricane, one would see a cone vectoring out from the point of the storm towards the numerous possible places the storm could go. Typically, warnings for hurricanes go out to entire regions and even then, the predicted course may not always be correct.
As Texas tries to recover from Hurricane Harvey, Florida is now the one of the possible landfall points for Hurricane Irma which is slowly tracking across the Atlantic with incredible and dangerous power. Behind Irma is Tropical Storm Jose which is also expected to jump to hurricane force winds within the week…I will continue to discuss hurricanes in my next post on Friday as Irma gets closer to Florida. I hope everyone had a relaxing Labor Day Weekend but please continue to keep the storm victims in your thoughts and prayers, remember, we’re all in this together. If you have it in your means to do so, there are literally dozens of ways of reaching out to the victims of the storm to help, I encourage you to do so and be prepared as more storms head our way.
Wm Reid
Best Home Care Services
325 N Eastern Ave
Connersville, IN 47331
765-827-9833
wmreid@bhcshealth.com