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Variously called hurricanes, typhoons or cyclones, depending on which ocean they form in, these storms rank among nature's fiercest. Huge, whirling tempests that form out at sea, tropical cyclones are assessed based on their strength in wind power. Those in the Atlantic are ranked on the Saffir-Simpson scale, developed in 1969 by scientists at the U.S. National Hurricane Center. The scale rates hurricanes by category [click here for the scale]. Even at their weakest, hurricanes generate winds in excess of 74 miles an hour. And stronger storms--such as last year's catastrophic Hurricane Katrina--wallop with winds greater than 131 miles an hour.
But despite the fact that tropical cyclones can release as much energy as 10,000 nuclear bombs, they spring from the same humble beginnings as any storm: a disturbance caused by converging winds. Atlantic hurricanes--named for Huracan, an evil deity of Central America's Tainos people--typically form when a thunderstorm blows off the coast of Africa, travels out to sea and gathers power over the eastern Caribbean. The storms, however, require high humidity, light winds in the upper atmosphere and warm seas to spin up to cyclonic strength. If one of these ingredients is missing, the storm will peter out.
