They are tropical storms so why can’t they traverse the entirety of the tropics?
In: 588
Because of the coriolis effect. Storms are driven by air rushing to fill low pressure regions. In the northern hemisphere, when something moves north, it has a bit of extra velocity to the east because the Earth spins faster at the equator than at the poles. So if you blow some air north, it will curve to the east. Similarly, if you blow air south, it curves to the west. Now when you have a low pressure region, the air tries to fill it back in, but ends up circling around in a clockwise direction and the low pressure region sticks around. Voila, you have a hurricane, which will always rotate clockwise in the northern hemisphere. The southern hemisphere is the same, but now the air will spin counter-clockwise. Right at the equator, there’s no coriolis effect, because as you move north/south, the Earth’s rotation speed doesn’t change. With no coriolis effect, there’s nothing to stop the air from going straight into the low pressure region. Fill in the low pressure region, and no storm.
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