Ask Me Everythinga

Screaming wind

The eye of a hurricane is strangely calm, but it is surrounded by a wali of very high storm clouds that generate powerful updrafts, sucking in air like a massive vacuum cleaner. This produces winds of up to 186 mph (300 km/h)—enough to create huge ocean waves and flatten many buildings that lie in the path of the storm.

•e-gć£Ś.

Torrential rain

The battering winds are accompanied by epic rainfall, so heavy that it almost defies belief. When Hurricane Mitch struck Central America in 1998, it dumped 50 in (127 cm) of rain in a few hours—equivalent to half the typical annual rainfall! The enormous volume of water pours off the landscape in flash floods and mudslides.

Storm surge

The atmospheric pressure at the eye of the storm is very Iow, so winds and surrounding air pressure push up a moving body of water—a storm surge. As the surge nears the coast, it generates huge waves morę than 33 ft (10 m) high. A storm surge flooded New Orleans when the city was struck by Hurricane Katrina in 2005

The biggest, most powerful storms on Earth are the massive cyclones that build up over tropical oceans. Up to 500 miles (800 km) across, they are known as hurricanes, tropical cyclones, or typhoons. Intense evaporation of the warm surface water creates immense storm clouds that form a revolving spiral around a central “eye,” causing high winds, torrential rain, and huge ocean waves. If these storms strike land, they destroy virtually everything in their path.