No typhoon comes to the Gulf of Mexico no matter how long they wait for it. The strongest winds in Asia Pacific are not recorded as hurricanes. Is there any scientific explanation why that does not happen?
Typhoons, hurricanes, tropical storms and extratropical cyclones are meteorological phenomena of the same class, but geographically they are often associated with different regions of our planet.
A typhoon is produced in the western Pacific. In turn, the word 'hurricane' rarely describes the weather situation in the countries of the Southern Cone, but the reason is different.
It is that the temperature of the ocean in its around is not high enough so that one is formed, explained 'The Intransigente'. However, some tropical storms can occur, which are common on the coasts of Brazil, but also occur in countries farther south.
If a storm is generated beyond the tropics in the middle latitudes, it is more commonly referred to as a 'cyclone'. There are some that form over the Arctic Ocean and that does not mean that they are not equally stormy.
The origins of each cyclone or storm, any shores affected, are in some area of low atmospheric pressure, or depression. The Spanish word 'storm' perfectly describes this phenomenon accompanied by the rotating movement of the clouds as the 'eye' advances towards the continent.
However, there are also semi-permanent and almost immobile depressions that are located in the same place during much of the year. Such are the Aleutian, common to the Gulf of Alaska, and the Asian, which maintains its center over Afghanistan. Of course, they can not reach their own wind speeds for hurricanes or cause so much rainfall.
The strongest winds
At an international level, storms or cyclones that cause winds exceeding 33 meters per second are usually classified as hurricanes, according to RIA Novosti. The US-made Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale has been adopted by meteorologists in Russia and across Europe. Attributes the categories of 1 to 5 according to the average speed of the wind, being own fifth to the most intense cyclones, with 70 m / s.
In Asia Pacific the latter category corresponds to the 'super-faces': if they blow above 67 m / s.
If the winds do not reach even 33 m / s, they can still be very destructive due to a sudden increase in the wind speed of more than 8 m / s (provided that the gust lasts for at least two minutes) and the minimum speed of some 11 m / s. In this case they are classified worldwide as 'turbanadas'.
Being an authentic hurricane an extremely rare phenomenon in Spain, the word to designate extremely harsh storms was adopted from the Caribbean indigenous population. The term was derived from the name of the deity of evil and fear in Tainan mythology: Juracán. That is to say, it is a very specific climatic phenomenon to the west of the Atlantic, to the Caribbean Sea and the Antilles.
The most disastrous hurricane and typhoon in history
It was precisely in the Caribbean that the most disastrous hurricane in history began in October 1780, much stronger than Katrina and Irma, together: San Calixto II or the Great Hurricane of the Antilles.
In the absence of devices to accurately measure the speed of the wind, it is estimated that at that time two unusual features: shouting, people could not hear themselves and that the wind ripped the bark from the trees before throwing them down . From these data it is believed that the winds reached 89 meters per second. The consequences: more than 22,000 deaths throughout the affected region.