Weather Hazards - Read On To Find Out About The Mysteries of Our Weather from Hurricanes, Droughts, Blizzards, Thunder and Lightning

Nov 13, 2024

6 min read

Tropical Storms

Tropical storms include Hurricanes, Typhoons, Cyclone and much more. Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones are the same but are called differently depending on what part of the world you live in. Hurricanes can come in many different sizes and strength/speed.

Category 1 – The Hurricane’s speed is around 74 to 95 mph (which is miles per hour) with storm surges 4 to 5 feet high (storm surges are bodies of water getting pushed towards the coast due to extreme winds and low pressure can cause the water to rise one centimetre per every millibar of pressure).

Category 2 – The Hurricane’s speed is around 96 to 110 mph with storm surges 6 to 8 feet high this is enough to cause flooding and some damage on property.

Category 3 – The Hurricane’s speed is around 111 to 130 mph with storm surges 9 to 12 feet high, this can cause inland floodings and moderate damage to property.

Category 4 – The Hurricane’s speed is around 131 to 155 mph with storm surges 13 to 16 feet high, this can cause major structural damage to properties with severe floodings. If the storm is in this category evacuation is necessary. Trees can start to uproot.

Category 5 – The Hurricane’s speed is anywhere beyond 155 mph with storm surges eighteen feet or more, this can cause severe damage to buildings with violent floods. Trees can be thrown away from powerful winds and cause even more destruction to properties.

How a hurricane form

Hurricanes usually need water temperatures of 26 degrees Celsius (80’F) to form this is because warm water acts like an energy source/fuel for the Hurricane to run on. Due to the warm water, moist air rises it cools down and condenses producing clouds and steam. During the formation of clouds, the cooling down of moist air releases heat to the surrounding which furthermore heats up the water and form more clouds, this is called Atmospheric Instability which creates chain reaction. This then creates an area of low pressure. Then Coriolis effect acts upon the area of low pressure causing the storm to create a more define shape and circular wind motion. The storm continues to gain strength as more warm air rises into the storm. When the storm continues to gain strength and a speed of 39 mph it is classified as a tropical storm but if it exceeds 79 mph it is classified as a Hurricane.

Tornados

Tornados are circulating wind columns which has been undrafted due to varied wind speeds which causes it to touch the ground. Tornados can come in many different shapes sizes; some can be wide and bulky, or some can be quite narrow and twisty. As you can see in the picture above there are two little tornadoes behind it, these are called satellites since they revolve around the main tornado. Tornados first starts of as a clean fluffy spinning column of air made from clouds but once it touches the ground (called the touch-ground) the tornado picks up debris and dirt with makes the tornado slowly turn into a muddy or even sometimes dark brownish – black in colour. Just like Hurricanes, tornadoes have categories too. All tornados start of as a heavy thundercloud and hail stones.

EF-0 – Winds up to 65 to 85 mph. This is considered as a weak or light tornado.

EF-1 – Winds up to 86 to 110 mph. This is considered as a moderate tornado.

EF-2 – winds up to 111 to 135 mph. This is considered as a considerable tornado.

EF-3 – Winds up to 136 to 165 mph. This is considered as a severe tornado.

EF-4 – winds up to 166 to 200 mph. This is considered as a devastating tornado.

EF-5 – Winds up to 200mph and more. This is known as an incredible tornado.

Lightning/Thunderstorms

Thunderstorms are created when warm air containing a lot of moisture rises upwards. If the air stays warm enough it continues to rise until it reaches the stratosphere. The water vapour in the air stars to condense and form clouds in under freezing temperatures. This creates a Cumulonimbus cloud. In the cumulonimbus cloud starts to grow by collecting smaller liquid water droplets that has not been frozen yet this state is called the supercooled state. Once the ice particles becomes the size of an tennis ball multiple ice balls collide and brush past each other causing friction to build up in the cloud. Once the cloud can no longer contain the static charge that was growing inside the cloud releases a powerful jet or energy known as lightning. Lightning are normally negatively charged so the strike down but sometimes they can strike up since the top layer of the cloud is positive and the middle and lower sections of the cloud is negatively charged. Every single second, around 45 lightning strikes the Earth. Around 10 percent of all global forest fires are caused by lightning with 50 percent of forest fire in the US are caused by lightning. Lightning can appear in volcanic eruptions too due to the friction of particles colliding and brushing past each other in the ash cloud. There are many different types of lightnings.

Positive Cloud to Ground (+CG) – extremely bright and loud.

Cloud to Air (CA) – when lightning strikes outwards from the cloud to the surrounding air.

Ground to cloud (GC) – when lightning is emitted from the ground to the clouds.

Intercloud (IC) – when lightning occurs inside the cloud.

Cloud to Cloud (CC) – when lightning strikes another cloud instead of the ground.

Sprites – red jellyfish shaped lightning which occurs on the very tip on an cumulonimbus Cloud spanning over 60 meters.

Blue jets – blue lightning which also occurs on the tip of a cumulonimbus cloud but spanning just over 30 meters and lasts about a fraction of a second.

Elves – circular in shape and can span over 300 miles.

Blizzard/Snowstorm

Blizzards have a wind speed of around 35 miles per hour. Blizzards can causes below freezing point temperatures, the worst blizzard ever recorded was in 1888 in North America where temperatures fell to -18 degrees which completely froze over the Mississippi river. They can cause poor visibility for up to 3 hours minimum.

Blizzards can be extremely dangerous since snow can accumulate on doors of houses and building making people trapped in houses. Blizzards increases the risk and rate of highway accidents since vehicles cannot drive properly on icy roads due to the lack of grip on the road with the car’s threads. Blizzards can be harmful to the environment too because snow can build up on branches of trees, soon the branch cannot take anymore snow, so the branch breaks off. This can cause serious health damage on trees which can put its life at risk.

Blizzards are stronger and longer around the Northern and Southern Poles so countries such as Russia, Canada, Northern Europe and Central Asia. The reason why there isn’t or much blizzards around the South Pole is because there are not much landmasses only the very southern tip of South America experience blizzards.

Drought

Droughts are caused when there is an area of high pressure. High pressure means the air has little or negligible amounts of water moisture in the air meaning there will not be any sort of precipitation for a very long time. Where droughts are common so are deserts, but droughts can happen in one of the world’s wettest places on Earth, the Amazon Rainforest. As you see from the picture above the river has completely dried up and the trees are beginning to wither due to the lack of water. This could happen due to deforestation which can severe the delicate water and nutrient cycle of the forest.

Droughts are becoming more common year after year due to global warming. The rising temperatures are causing desertification to happen. Desertification is when areas of lush vegetation with abundance of water slowly become semi-arid (when the land becomes partially dry but still holds enough water to sustain plants and animals), then becomes completely arid. This causes deserts to grow and expand.

The Atacama Desert, in Chile, once experienced a time where it did not rain for over four hundred years and has riverbeds that has been dry for well over 120,000 years. The biggest desert on Earth is the Sahara Desert which has remained a desert for the past 130,000 years but there is an 20,000-year cycle when the Sahara becomes green and transforms into lush grasslands and woodlands, this is because around every 20,00 years the Earth Axis changes which brings monsoon weathers to the desert.