The Difference Between Tornadoes & Hurricanes

Tornades and hurricanes can cause massive damage, but they are two different types of storm. The important difference is their relative size. Hurricanes are easy to see from the universe as it covers most of the surface of the earth. On the other hand, tornadoes are smaller and hidden under the clouds they form, so they rarely appear in the universe. In both types of storms, the tornado has a faster wind speed

A hurricane is formed in a tropical ocean where the water is at least 27 degrees Celsius (80 degrees Fahrenheit). Warm, moist air rises above the troposphere and is propelled by a strong tropical wind and creates low pressure at the sea level. The air from the surrounding environment will push in and rise to equalize the pressure but the cold air from the top of the weather system will fall and eventually a characteristic circular spiral storm will occur . There was a tornado on the land of heavy thunderstorms. Finally, a funnel shaped cloud that touches a tornado is the result of horizontal wind shear between the two different pressure zones in the cloud.

When the tornado fell, the diameter of the funnel rarely exceeded 500 meters (0.25 mile); the largest funnel ever was 4 kilometers (2.5 miles). Hurricanes can affect the whole country or small countries; hurricanes are usually within 100 miles, but some hurricanes grow to be big enough to be affected by strong winds within 500 miles . A hurricane may last from several days to several weeks, but a tornado is usually a short phenomenon of duration not exceeding an hour.

Tropical winds can become hurricane when the wind speed reaches at least 119 km / h (74 mph), but the strongest type 5 hurricane wind exceeds 250 km / h (155 mph) per hour. The wind around the tornado blows quickly. The strongest tornado is the wind speed is over 483 km (300 mph). These tornados with the maximum wind speed are examples of Fujita Pearson or F grade F5 tornado. At the lower limit of the scale, the wind speed of the F0 tornado is 64 to 166 km / h (40 to 72 mph).

Hurricane Katrina is the most expensive hurricane in American history and caused a loss of 108 billion dollars. It passed Florida as a Category 1 hurricane, but gained energy in the Gulf of Mexico and became a category 5 storm before hitting the Gulf. By contrast, the damage caused by the most devastating tornado in American history hit the town of Missouri Joplin in 2011 and caused about 3% of the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina. This difference emphasizes the fact that Hurricane Katrina is bigger than a tornado and the storm is more durable.

The most obvious difference between tornadoes and hurricanes is that they have very different scales. They are formed in different environments and have different effects on the environment. Tornadoes are "small-scale cycles", the maximum horizontal dimension observed in the most severe cases is on the order of 1 to 1.5 miles. They are often associated with strong thunderstorms developing in the middle and high wind shear environments of spring and early summer, when large winds provide favorable conditions for occasional serious collisions among moist warm air. The air of the cold dry continent of the Gulf of Mexico comes from the northwest. However, tornadoes can occur in various environments and places all over the world. Hurricane landings often involve multiple tornados. They are formed at low latitudes, generally between 5 and 20 degrees, but never on the equator.

There are many differences between tornadoes and hurricanes. The largest tornado observed every time is 4 km (2.5 miles) wide and most tornadoes are less than 0.8 km (0.5 mile) wide. The father's storm cloud that generates a tornado is generally about 16 kilometers (10 miles) wide. However, hurricanes are usually much larger, with widths ranging from about 160 kilometers (100 miles) to 1600 kilometers (1000 miles) (see Hurricane structure and main cycle). Tornado has a very short lifetime ranging from seconds to hours. In contrast, the life cycle of hurricanes can last from several days to several weeks. The tornado and its parent's storm cloud need strong vertical wind shear and a strong horizontal temperature change to form and survive; the hurricane is in a weak vertical wind shear area where the temperature level hardly changes Prosper (see Hurricane Genesis). Birth of hurricanes) Furthermore, strong tornadoes usually occur on land, and hurricanes mostly occur at sea.