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Understanding the language of storms and hurricanes.
By Times Staff
Published May 21, 2006
ANEMOMETER: An instrument that measures the speed or force of the wind.
BEST TRACK: A subjectively smoothed path, versus a precise and very erratic fix-to-fix path, used to represent tropical cyclone movement. It is based on an assessment of all available data.
CAPE VERDE ISLANDS: A group of volcanic islands in the eastern Atlantic Ocean off the coast of West Africa. A Cape Verde hurricane originates near here.
CENTER: The vertical axis or core of a tropical cyclone. It is usually determined by cloud vorticity patterns, wind, and/or pressure distributions.
CYCLONE: An atmospheric circulation (low-pressure system) with rotating and converging winds, in which the center has a relative pressure minimum. It usually has a diameter of 2,000 to 3,000 kilometers. When developing, a cyclone typically consists of a warm front pushing north and a cold front pushing south with the center of low pressure (cyclone center) at the junction of the two fronts. Cyclones in the Northern Hemisphere rotate counter-clockwise while Southern Hemisphere cyclones rotate clockwise.
DATA BUOYS: Buoys placed throughout the Gulf of Mexico and along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States that relay information on air and water temperature, wind speed, air pressure and wave conditions via radio signals.
DOPPLER RADAR: Weather radar that measures direction and speed of a moving object, such as drops of precipitation, by determining whether atmospheric motion is horizontally toward or away from the radar.
EL NINO: A warming of the Pacific Ocean currents along the coasts of Peru and Ecuador near the equator that is generally associated with dramatic changes or a shift in the weather patterns of the region. A major El Nino event generally occurs every three to seven years and is associated with changes in the weather patterns worldwide, including hurricanes.
EYE: The center of a tropical storm or hurricane characterized by a roughly circular area of light winds and rain-free skies and the lowest pressure. An eye will usually develop when the maximum sustained wind speeds exceed 78 mph. It can range in size from as small as 5 miles to up to 60 miles (20-50 km) but the average size is 20 miles. In general, when the eye begins to shrink in size, the storm is intensifying.
EYE WALL: An organized band of convection surrounding the eye, or center, of a tropical cyclone. It contains cumulonimbus clouds, severest thunderstorms, heaviest precipitation and strongest winds.
FEEDER BANDS: In tropical parlance, the lines or bands of thunderstorms that spiral into and around the center of a tropical system. Also known as outer convective bands, a typical hurricane may have three or more of these bands. They occur in advance of the main rain shield and are usually 40 to 80 miles apart.
GREENWICH MEAN TIME (GMT): The name of the 24-hour time scale that is used throughout the scientific and military communities. Standard Time begins at Greenwich, England, which is the Prime Meridian of longitude. The globe is divided into 24 time zones of 15 degrees of arc, or one hour in time apart. To the east of this meridian, time zones are numbered 1 to 12 and prefixed with a minus (-), while to the west, the time zones are also numbered 1 through 12 but prefixed with a plus (+). Other names for this time measurement are Universal Time Coordinate (UTC) and Zulu (Z).
HIGH-PRESSURE SYSTEM: An area of relative pressure maximum that has diverging winds and a rotation opposite to the earth's rotation. This is clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and counterclockwise in the Southern Hemisphere. Also known as an anticyclone, it is the opposite of an area of low pressure or a cyclone.
INTERTROPICAL CONVERGENCE ZONE (ITCZ): The axis dividing the southeast trades from the northeast trades, toward which the surface winds tend to converge. The easterly trade winds of both hemispheres converge at an area near the equator called the "Intertropical Convergence Zone (ICTZ)," producing a narrow band of clouds and thunderstorms that encircle portions of the globe.
JET STREAM: Relatively strong winds concentrated within a narrow current in the atmosphere.
KNOT: A unit for the measurement of speed in the nautical system. It is the nautical miles per hour.
LANDFALL: The term used to describe where the hurricane eye actually passes over land, usually used to describe the continental states rather than islands in the Caribbean.
LEEWARD: The side of an object or obstacle, such as a ship's sail, a mountain or a hill, farthest away from the wind and, therefore, protected from the direct force of the wind. The opposite of windward.
SQUALL: A sudden increase of wind speed by at least 18 miles per hour (16 knots) and rising to 25 miles per hour (22 knots) or more and lasting for at least one minute.
STATIONARY FRONT: The boundary between two air masses, neither of which is replacing the other.
STORM SURGE: An abnormal rise in sea level accompanying a hurricane or other intense storm, and whose height is the difference between the observed level of the sea surface and the level that would have occurred in the absence of the cyclone. Storm surge is usually estimated by subtracting the normal or astronomic high tide from the observed storm tide. Note: Waves on top of the storm surge will create an even greater high-water mark.
STORM TRACKS: The path or tracks generally followed by a cyclonic disturbance.
TORNADO: A violently rotating column of air in contact with and extending between a convective cloud and the surface of the earth. It is the most destructive of all storm-scale atmospheric phenomena. They can occur anywhere in the world given the right conditions, especially after the landfall of hurricanes.
TROPICAL STORM (TS): A tropical cyclone in which the maximum sustained surface wind speed (1 minute average) is in the range of 39 to 73 mph (34 to 63 knots). At this point, the system is given a name. In the Atlantic/Caribbean/Gulf of Mexico basin, the names start with "A" each season.
TROPICAL WAVE: Another name for an easterly wave, it is an area of relatively low pressure (trough) moving westward through the trade wind easterlies. Generally, it is associated with extensive cloudiness and showers, and may be associated with possible tropical cyclone development.
TYPHOON: A hurricane that occurs in the Pacific Region of the Philippines or the China Sea
Source: Federal Emergency Management Agency
[Last modified May 19, 2006, 17:55:32]
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