Hurricanes are tropical storms with wind speeds over 74 mph. "Hurricane" is a word meaning "evil spirit and big wind" in the Caribbean Indian language. Three ingredients make a hurricane: warm water, moist air, and converging winds. When winds meet over warm water (at least 80 degrees F) and push in a circular pattern, a hurricane may form. Most Atlantic hurricanes begin on the west coast of Africa and are pushed across the ocean to the east coast of the USA.
The majority of hurricanes begin near the equatorial belt. The leftward-circulating winds from the south meet right-circulating winds from the north due to the Coriolis effect (spin of the earth).
These winds pull warm air from the surface of the water and push it up, creating a funnel. The center of the funnel is the hurricane's Eye, which is surprisingly, calm. The wall of the eye (or Eye Wall), however, is where the wind is most turbulent as it compresses into a relatively tight space with the spin of the cloud formations. The warmer air rising from the ocean brings moisture with it, which forms the clouds.
The center of the Eye is calm while the turbulence begins at the walls of the eye, where winds are most intense. From the Eye Wall outward it is turbulent, but becomes decreasingly so as the area of the storm gets larger. The circulating cloud formations around the Eye are dark because they are the rain bands where rain falls, though most of this evaporates back into the storm before reaching the surface.
The heat of the water is the fuel source for the feeds on itself - spinning left if moving south and right if moving north. As they move, hurricanes recirculate much of their energy, growing with a exponential growth. Because a crucial element for hurricane growth is warm water, they often lose their energy when they make landfall or enter cooler climates.
Many storms become hurricanes on the map, move into a small area of cooler water, and then lose their force and die off.
Most hurricanes last only a few days. The storm will begin as a tropical depression, or a low pressure zone in the tropics with relatively low wind speeds. As winds pick up and feed on one another, the storm might begin moving north or south of the equator, increasing in size and intensity. This is a tropical storm, or baby hurricane.
Eventually, if conditions are right, the tropical storm will continue moving north or southwards|south or north] and will reach wind speeds of over 74 miles per hour. Only then is it a hurricane. Generally, the less spread out a hurricane is, the more potential damage it will do on landfall. Imagine a ball thrown at your nose, for example. The bigger the ball is, the more spread out the impact area will be and the less damage your nose will incur. Smaller balls like baseballs or golf balls, however, will hit your nose directly and put all of their force in a smaller area, causing more damage.
About a hundred tropical storms develop every year. About half of those become hurricanes, but only about 5-10% of those make landfall in an inhabited area. Most hurricanes never make the shore, instead running themselves out out in the ocean. For more information about how to protect your house from hurricanes, see miami hurricane shutters.
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