Hurricanes, typhoons, cyclones and other tropical revolving storms

Question

Is there any significant difference between hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons, apart from the oceans in which they occur?

Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]Is there any significant difference between hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons, apart from the oceans in which they occur?[/nq]
There are anticyclones, but no antihurricanes.

Usenet · Answer

X-No-Archive: yes
[nq:1]Is there any significant difference between hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons, apart from the oceans in which they occur?[/nq]
Geography is the pointer. Back in October 1987, an English TV weather man, Mr Fish, assured viewers on the eve of a storm (that left us without electricity for eight days) that "there won't be a hurricane". He was right. It was a gale with hurricane force winds. Hurricanes don't make it across the pond.
Hurricanes and typhoons are tropical cyclones that have maximum sustained winds of at least 120 km/h (75 mph). Atlantic and eastern Pacific storms are called hurricanes, from the West Indian word huracan ("big wind"). Western Pacific storms are called typhoons, from the Chinese taifun, "great wind.
So long as hurricanes are big, they're not too bad. It's when they shrink that the trouble starts. To conserve angular momentum the gyre has to accelerate. The worst known revolving storms occur on Jupiter with apron speeds of 1000 km/h plus (600 mph+). I don't know what they're called on Jupiter.
Hurricanes depend on the Coriolis Effect, which was named after the Frenchman who invented it. What more evidence is needed to prove the perfidiousness of the accused French?
It was French linesmen, working like blacks across Southern England, who restored our power in 1987. Out of a sense of guilt, perhaps? The wretched garlic-munchers who swarmed over our roof like monkeys liked my wife's Earl Grey tea so she gave them a box of EG teabags each! I had stern words with her over the careless exporting of English culture.

James Follett. Novelist (Callsign G1LXP)
http://www.jamesfollett.dswilliams.co.uk and http://www.marjacq.com

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]X-No-Archive: yes It was French linesmen, working like blacks across Southern England, who restored our power in 1987. Out of ... them a box of EG teabags each! I had stern words with her over the careless exporting of English culture.[/nq]
Let's hope they never work out where the tea is actually grown ...
John Dean
Oxford
De-frag to reply

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Is there any significant difference between hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons, apart from the oceans in which they occur?[/nq]
The definitional variations are probably trivial, although a case can be made for local preference and so on. What is probably of significance is the hemisphere in which the name is common (northern or southern) since this determines the direction of rotation and therefore the probable path, the "dangerous quadrant," etc.

Good luck and good sailing.
s/v Kerry Deare of Barnegat
http://kerrydeare.tripod.com

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]Is there any significant difference between hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons, apart from the oceans in which they occur?[/nq]
[nq:1]The definitional variations are probably trivial, although a case can be made for local preference and so on. What is ... is common (northern or southern) sincethis determines the direction of rotation and therefore the probable path, the "dangerous quadrant," etc.[/nq]
But in the Indian Ocean they are cyclones on both sides of the equator.
Philip Eden

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