Why is landfall marked and counted down to when the eye of the hurricane hits, when it seems all the damaging parts are not the eye at all?
In: Other
Couple reasons. The first is that there’s no other good reference for when the storm is “touching” land. Clouds and rain get flung off from the storm and can start hitting the land many hours or days before the rest of it hits. The eye wall is at least a well-defined mark to use to define the storm.
The other big reason is that landfall almost always causes the storm to weaken and usually signals the beginning of the end of the storm. Hurricanes are fueled by warm, moist air coming from the ocean. Once the eye goes over land, that fuel is disrupted. Plus, there’s a lot more stuff getting in the way of the wind, slowing it down and further disrupting the strength of the storm. So, landfall is a significant event in the evolution of the storm.
Latest Answers