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Take your hand and wave it across the the water in the bathtub.
Now take your hand and spinon around and around until you form a little whirl pool.
A thunderstorm sweeps across and causes issues.
A hurricane is a thunderstorm raging in a circle with (usually) higher winders. A hurricane can spawn smaller tornados.
Also you have at least two storm fronts with the hurricane, the front of the storm, the back of the storm, and if your unfortunate the back of the eye. Lole getting hit with three hard thunderstorms in a row.
Florida resident. Sideways rain is pretty common here. A hurricane is enormous compared to a thunderstorm and spins, just like a tornado, just slower. Storms go from Tropical Depressions, to Tropical Storms (Less than 75 mph) and go into Hurricane category where they are rated from 1 to a 5.
* 1 75-95 mph
* 2 96-110 mph
* 3 111-129 mph
* 4 130-156 mph
* 5 157+ mph
Where as a tornado is just pure wind power, the hurricane brings massive rain and often storm surges and flooding. The eye of the hurricane is low pressure and when over water, will lift a bubble of ocean water due to the low pressure which it brings onto shore causing a storm surge flood. As the ground gets wet, it gets soft and becomes much easier for trees to get blown over and the constant rain saturates the ground causing even more flooding.
A bad thunderstorm it just a bad thunderstorm. It will have wind, rain, thunder, lightning, go on for days some times, but it is not a rotating weather event that could cover a state.
technically they are called tropical cyclones. They are basically swirling SYSTEM of storms that originate over tropical or sub-tropical water. Hurricanes specifically are only the ones that happen in the atlantic and parts of the north pacific from June to November. In the south pacific and indian ocean they are called typhoons. In the southern hemisphere they just call them tropical cyclones. if it is a weak “hurricane” it is a tropical depression. But, they are all technically the same weather phenomenon……..tropical cylones.
Difference is where they originate, their strength, and their size. A hurricane is a lot of real bad thunderstorms all swirling around each other.
from a strength standpoint, a thunderstorm can’t even touch the power of a hurricane. The only comparative type of storm system that can form over land is a tornado. Even then, a tornado might produce stronger wind than a hurricane, but over a fraction of the area lasting just a few minutes while hurricanes are typically hundreds of miles wide and last days.
Hurricanes are “warm core” (tropical) storms. They’re powered by rising masses of warm, moist air, usually over an ocean. As long as the storm has more warm, moist air, it can continue and intensify.
Most (non-tropical) weather systems are frontal storms. They’re created when two different air masses rub up against each other and form a weather “front”. The more different the two air masses are, the more intense these systems can be.
Tropical storms don’t need a front to develop along.
When you hear about a hurricane taking on “extra-tropical” characteristics, that means the warm air it uses as fuel has mostly run out, and it’s crashed into a different air mass, creating a weather front and taking on a new life as a frontal system.
In short, the ways in which tropical and non-tropical storms form, are organized, and are fueled are fundamentally different from each other.
A hurricane is a giant tropical storm that has strong circular winds of over 75mph. They start in warm tropical waters and move north/northwest. They build strength over open water and break apart once they come ashore.
Hurricanes are unbelievable to live through.
I’ll never forget being 8 years old when Alicia hit texas. We lived near the water so our house was on stilts. The row of houses in front of us, directly on the water, were not. Nor were either side neighbors.
Guess who didn’t flood or lose their roof?
The wind felt like it was going to tear the house down. Black and no power. Pitch black.
Then the eye passed over. And light come in. And everything qas quiet and calm. Then the darkness came again.
That was an absolutely devastating storm. And I’ve never been more scared in my life. But I made it. We lived.
Storms, and their big brother cousins Tornadoes, are powered by energy in the atmosphere that is typically released when a cold front enables rapid disturbance of air layers and a fast release of energy already in the air.
Theres a limited amount of energy (this is in the form of water vapor in the air, that releases air when it condenses out) and the storm has access to a limited area of air, so these events are very localized and end once they’ve tapped out energy reserves in the local area – ie very quickly.
Hurricanes are powered by energy in the sea, with the warm ocean powering it up by releasing humidity into the atmosphere, and as it powers up it uses the energy released by the ocean faster and faster so keeps on powering up as long as it’s over warm ocean. There’s a vast quantity of energy available here, over a huge area, that can spend a week or more powering up a hurricane as long as it stays over warm water., resulting in a days long sustained storm event over a huge area. This is also why, with a handful of exceptions, hurricanes lose power so fast as soon as they hit land – they go from being able to draw from the enormous energy reserve in the ocean to having to tap the much more modest energy reserves in the atmosphere, so power down fairly promptly.
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