Natural Hazards and Disasters

Class 9: Hurricanes

Class Slides

Hurricanes

“Hurricanes and typhoons are atmospheric circulation systems of tropical origin characterized by low pressure at the center and near surface winds spiraling inward around this center, typically storm size ranges from 10 to 80 km for the radius to maximum wind speeds with cloud cover extending from about 150 to 1,500 km. In meteorological terms, hurricanes and typhoons are low pressure, warm-core cyclones, originating in warm waters with closed surface winds rotating about an eye.” (From Resio, D., Kay, S., 2015. Hurricanes and Typhoons. In "Encyclopedia of Marine Geosciences", pages 1-8, Springer, https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-94-007-6644-0_180-1?no-access=true).

Class Reading List

Pickrell, J, 2006. Introduction to Hurricanes. New Scientist, https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9985-introduction-hurricanes/.

Morsink, K., 2016. Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones. Ocean Portal, Smithonian National Museum of Natural History. http://ocean.si.edu/hurricanes-typhoons-and-cyclones.

Wikipedia, 2017. Tropical cyclone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_cyclone.

National Hurricane Center, 2017. Hurricanes in History. http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/outreach/history/. See also the info on the annual hurrican seasons available at http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/ and the overviews of the most extreme hurricanes available at http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/dcmi.shtml.

NOAA, 2017. Historical Hurricane Tracks. https://coast.noaa.gov/hurricanes.

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