What is a tropical cyclone over the Atlantic called?
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hurricane
Hurricanes form over sea water of at least 26 degrees.
💡 Did you know? The name goes back to „Huracán“, a Maya storm god.
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What is the same type of storm called over the western Pacific?
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typhoon
It is physically exactly the same storm: only the region changes the name.
💡 Did you know? Over the Indian Ocean it is simply called a cyclone.
What is the calm centre of a cyclone called?
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eye
In the eye air sinks, the sky clears and the wind almost dies away.
💡 Did you know? Anyone mistaking the calm eye for the end gets caught by the far side of the storm.
Which scale measures the strength of hurricanes?
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Saffir-Simpson scale
It runs from category 1 to 5 based on wind speed.
💡 Did you know? From category 3 upwards a hurricane counts as „major“.
Which scale rates the strength of tornadoes?
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Fujita scale
It estimates wind speed from the damage caused.
💡 Did you know? Since almost no instrument survives inside a tornado, the detour via damage is necessary.
What is the most twister-prone region of the USA called?
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Tornado Alley
There moist Gulf air meets dry air from the Rocky Mountains.
💡 Did you know? Nowhere in the world sees as many tornadoes as the central United States.
What is the climate swing with unusually warm water in the eastern Pacific called?
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El Niño
El Niño shifts rain and drought belts around half the globe.
💡 Did you know? Peruvian fishermen named it after the Christ child because it often starts near Christmas.
What is the cold counterpart to El Niño called?
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La Niña
During La Niña the water in the eastern Pacific is unusually cold.
💡 Did you know? El Niño and La Niña alternate irregularly every two to seven years.
Roughly how hot does the air in a lightning channel get?
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30,000 degrees
That is around five times hotter than the surface of the sun.
💡 Did you know? Thunder is nothing but the shock wave from that suddenly heated air.
How many seconds between lightning and thunder correspond to about one kilometre?
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three seconds
Sound travels around 340 metres per second; light arrives practically instantly.
💡 Did you know? Count to three and the storm is already one kilometre away.
What is the wind that reverses with the seasons and brings South Asia its rain?
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monsoon
In summer it blows from sea to land and brings months of rain.
💡 Did you know? The harvest of roughly a fifth of humanity depends on the monsoon rains.
What is the warm, dry downslope wind on the northern side of the Alps called?
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foehn
The air loses its moisture on the mountains and warms strongly as it descends.
💡 Did you know? During a foehn the visibility is often so clear that mountains look close enough to touch.
What is a snowstorm with strong wind and severely reduced visibility called?
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blizzard
What counts is not the amount of snow but the wind and the visibility.
💡 Did you know? A blizzard can happen without fresh snow if wind whips up old snow.
What is the dangerous rise of sea level caused by gale-force winds called?
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storm surge
The wind pushes water against the coast, often helped by low air pressure.
💡 Did you know? The 1962 storm surge in Hamburg triggered the expansion of German coastal defences.
How do large hailstones form?
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repeated up and down
Each circuit adds a new layer of ice around the stone.
💡 Did you know? Cut a big hailstone open and you can count the layers like tree rings.
What is an unusually long period without sufficient rainfall called?
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drought
Drought is among the costliest weather disasters, however undramatic it looks.
💡 Did you know? Unlike a storm, a drought starts so slowly that its beginning can barely be dated.
From what wind speed does a storm count as hurricane force?
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118 km/h
That is force 12, the highest step on the Beaufort scale.
💡 Did you know? Storm „Kyrill“ swept over German summits at more than 200 km/h in 2007.
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