[ELI5] how do hurricanes form and get stronger, and where did the naming of them come from?
In: 0
The longer they spend over warm ocean water the more powerful they get, once they move over land they lose energy quickly. Each year there is a list of names that get used as each new hurricane is formed. https://youtu.be/VWCVohW5mD8
Hurricanes start when hot dry air gets over warm water. This usually starts in the eastern Atlantic with warm air coming off the African desert.
The hot dry air evaporates a bunch of water. This takes a ton of energy, cooling the air. The cooler air sinks and spreads out over the surface of the ocean, pulling in more hot dry air up high. The surface air also keeps warming from the warm water, picking up more heat, rising, and getting pulled back towards the center. So now you’ve got hot humid air up high heading towards a cooler low pressure center.
At the same time, the winds start to curve because of coriolis force (the sideways force due to earth spinning). The incoming air up high starts to spiral in towards the low pressure center, where it cools and falls, releasing all that water, causing clouds and rain.
And the whole thing becomes self-reinforcing. As long as there’s warm water, the air keeps picking up water and warmth, rises, gets pulled in back towards the center, and falls again. The more this happens, the more energy gets taken from the water to the air, the more wind/rain/clouds, the more wind, the more energy it picks up from the water, and so on. And the swirling air creates the familiar “vortex” shape. The hurricane will continue to grown and strengthen as long as it’s over warm water (this is why they rapidly lose strength when they get over land).
Naming is in alphabetic order. They get named when they become tropical storms (same weather pattern, just not as powerful).
The naming of them came from the necessity for weather forecasters, media, etc. to be able to reference a specific hurricane, when multiple hurricanes exist in the same ocean at the same time. Most other disasters you can just say something like the [disaster type] that affected [place name] on [date/month/etc] .
And as the other comments say, their strength comes from the fact that they are above warm ocean water.
Latest Answers