They are tropical storms so why can’t they traverse the entirety of the tropics?
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Hurricanes spin due to the coriolis effect. That is a force that deflects east or west depending on if you’re heading towards or away from the axis of rotation.
Since the Earth is curved, when you head towards the equator, you are heading away from the Earth’s axis. Once you cross the equator, you starting getting closer to the axis again. This means that while you’re at the equator, you can’t experience the coroilis force, and that means the hurricane would stop spinning, causing it to break up.
You may notice that tropical storms from the southern hemisphere spin the opposite direction as a hurricane. In order to cross the equator, the storm would essentially need to entirely reverse its spin. That reversal process would cause the storm to break up.
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