What's the difference between a hurricane and a typhoon?

Tropical cyclones that occur in the western part of the North Pacific Ocean and west of the international international date line are called typhoons. Tropical cyclones in the Atlantic Ocean or the eastern North Pacific Ocean are called hurricanes.

2. It happened in different places

Tropical cyclones are called hurricanes in the United States; It is called typhoon in the Philippines, China and Japan.

3. Different sources

The word hurricane comes from the Caribbean devil hurrican, and some people say that Hurakan, the god of thunderstorms and cyclones, is one of the creation gods in Mayan mythology. The word typhoon comes from Tifeng, the son of Gaia, the mother of the earth, in Greek mythology. It is a monster with a hundred faucets. It is said that its children are terrible winds.

As for the Chinese word "typhoon", some people say that it originated from Japanese, while others say that the pronunciation of "gale" in Cantonese from China was translated into typhoon after it spread abroad. In the past, there were frequent storms along the southeast coast of China, which were called "gale" by local fishermen and later turned into typhoons.

Second, the formation of the typhoon:

In the ocean in summer, strong sunlight will heat up the seawater, which will lead to violent evaporation of seawater. The water vapor near the water surface has a high temperature and will rise after being heated and expanded, forming an updraft.

In the process of water vapor rising, the ambient temperature gradually drops, and the water vapor will liquefy, forming clouds and rain. At the same time, the air with low temperature in the upper air will drop and form convection. But if this is the case, it is just a common convective rain in summer and has not yet formed a typhoon.

If the sunshine is strong and the air near the sea level rises sharply, a low-pressure area will be formed, and the surrounding air pressure will be high, forming a pressure gradient force, pushing the air to the low-pressure area and forming wind.

When the wind speed reaches 10.8m/s, it is called tropical depression, 17.2m/s is called tropical storm, 24.5m/s is called strong tropical storm, and 32.7m/s is called typhoon.

Third, the formation of hurricanes.

After the temperature rises in summer, the warm ocean makes the humid air rise continuously, which makes the humid air above the ocean warm. On the surface of the ocean, more air flows in to replace the humid air, which warms up slowly and then rises. A powerful cycle is constantly running, and more and more air is sucked into the low-pressure center.

However, to become a hurricane, it needs to rotate, and this requires a more critical factor, the rotation of the earth.

Although we can't feel the earth rotating, it has a global impact on the rotating world. When you spin, something strange happens. We are used to objects rotating in a straight line in the air, but when we start to rotate, the situation is quite different.

Since both the earth and the ball rotate counterclockwise and from right to left, from the thrower's point of view, the running route is curved to the right. The object curve produced by rotation is called "Coriolis effect", and it is precisely because of this effect that hurricanes rotate.

The air pressure in the center of the hurricane is very low, but the air pressure around it is very high. Usually, the atmosphere will flow directly to the low pressure area. Starting from the surrounding high pressure area, the Coriolis effect will shift the atmosphere to the right, so the atmosphere in all directions will shift to the right and hover around the low pressure area instead of flowing up and down directly. This will lead to strong rotation and strong spiral updraft.

Extended data

Matters needing attention when typhoon comes:

1. People living in dangerous houses, simple houses, tin houses, work sheds and coastal low-lying areas should evacuate to safety areas and do not enter coastal underground garages. Don't look for anything in the basement, and don't hide from the wind and rain under the billboard.

2. When houses in low-lying areas are flooded or besieged, residents who have no time to evacuate should move to the roof as soon as possible and send out distress signals; Or use floating objects such as bamboo and wood to move to safer areas such as nearby tall buildings.

3. When moving to avoid danger, it is necessary to move quickly and orderly along the pre-established evacuation route under the command of the person in charge of the transfer. The person in charge of the transfer shall organize the transfer according to the principle of personnel first, property later, old, young, sick and disabled first, and general personnel later.

4. In case of flood siege, communication conditions are available, and communication tools can be used to report to the local government and flood control department to request rescue. When there is no communication condition, you can set off fireworks, wave brightly colored clothes, or collectively call for help at the same time and send an emergency help signal to the outside world; Or take self-help measures to find larger floating objects.

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