Thank you in advance.
In: Planetary Science
The pressure is what drives the storm. Areas of low pressure in the atmosphere want to pull in air from areas of higher pressure to equalize (that’s just how gases spread around in a container/space). The way these hurricanes work is that an area of exceptionally-low pressure forms in the middle of them, sucking in warm, moist air from the ocean around it. As the air rushes in to the eye and gets bunched up, it starts to rotate the way water out of a jug will tend to spin as it drains. That spinning generates a ton of wind and the pressures coming up to the eye drive out moisture from the air and cause it to make clouds and rain and… you got yourself a hurricane.
So in short, a hurricane with a really low pressure center still has a lot of “oomph” left in it.
Wind is driven by pressure difference.
In the simplest possible terms, if there is an area of the atmosphere that is at lower pressure than another area of the atmosphere, air will rush from the high pressure area to the low pressure area, creating strong winds.
Broadly, the greater the pressure difference, the greater the winds. So if a hurricane is at notably low pressure, winds can be expected to be notably strong.
Latest Answers