PARKERSBURG, W.Va. (WTAP) - While they may not reach us much up here in the Mid-Ohio Valley, hurricanes and tropical cyclones impact hundreds of millions of people worldwide, and we will look into tropical cyclones in today's edition of In The Clouds.
Cyclones, hurricanes, typhoons, all names given to the same meteorological phenomenon.
What are these tropical cyclones? Well, these are rotating low pressure systems, similar to any other. The major difference, however, is that tropical cyclones do not have any fronts.
What do tropical cyclones even need to form?
There are four main ingredients needed for a hurricane to form, they are
Currently, the strength of a hurricane is gathered from wind speed. The scale starts at tropical depression, which is a somewhat rotation/organized group of storms with winds of less than 40 mph.
Above 40 mph you start going into tropical storms, which see higher levels of organization, but they usually don't have the classic eye you see in hurricanes, tropical storms wind speeds go up to 74 mph.
Once wind speed gets to 75, we go into the Saffir Simpson hurricane scale, which ranks storms in category 1-5.
Category one storms have winds of 74-95 mph. These winds could cause roof, siding, and gutter damage. Large branches could get snapped, and some trees can be toppled. These storms can also cause power outages due to damage to energy infrastructure.
Moving to category two, the wind speeds go from 96-110 mph. The damage to the roof, siding and gutter can be worse, more trees will be knocked over, blocking more roads, and widespread power loss can happen.
Once we get to category three, we get into the major hurricanes. Cat 3 winds are from 111-129. These storms can cause major roof damage, or even the partial removal of roofs. Even more trees can be knocked over, and you can start having damage to electricity and water infrastructure.
Category 4 hurricanes are categorized by winds of 130-156 mph. Well-built homes can see severe damage with loss of most of the roof or some exterior walls. Power outages from these storms can last for a long time.
Category 5 hurricanes encompass winds of 157 and above, as having categories above that when cat 5 storms can wipe out wide areas wouldn't be practical. These storms can strip houses to foundations, isolate neighborhoods with fallen trees and power poles.
Intensity can also be determined with the central pressure of the tropical cyclone. The pressure at the center of the storm can indicate the intensity of the storm.
But how do we estimate the storms wind speed and intensity categorically.
This is a job for the national oceanic and atmospheric administration's hurricane hunters. This is a partnership between NOAA and the U.S. Airforce, that fly missions into hurricanes to get an inside look at the storm conditions, more than what can be found by satellite data.
Now before i get into the air missions, the satellites are still very useful in measuring intensity. The geostationary operational environmental satellite, or goes, looks at the cloud and eye temperature, cloud structure, and atmospheric moisture content to see if the storm is ingesting any dry air.
NOAA uses two Lockheed WP-ED Orion four engine turboprop airplanes and one Gulfstream 4-sp to get into the hurricanes environment and figure out what's going on.
The hurricane hunters inside the plane drop a device called a dropwinsonde, which if you remember my talk on upper air measurements, you may recognize the windsonde part of a rawinsonde, this is similar, except if falls through the atmosphere, rather than rises.
These dropwinsondes expendable reconnaissance devices that measure pressure, temperature, and humidity to see into a tropical cyclone.
Multiple of these are used in each mission, to get multiple points in a storm, especially if there is visible differences in certain sections of a storm, since tropical cyclones are generally very big. Looking at all the data from both the plane, sondes and satellite imagery can help estimate the wind speed of the hurricane
But winds are not the only factor in the damage that can come from a hurricane; there is also storm surge.
Think of a storm surge as a small tsunami. The storm surge is an abnormal water level rise generated by a storm over and above the predicted tide.
Storm surges are caused by the strong onshore winds of a tropical storm or hurricane. Think of the wind as something that pushes the wall of water inland.
The intensity and spread of the surge can also be affected by the storm's movement. If the storm is strong, but fast, the surge will be high but limited in spread. But if the storm is slower, then the surge will make it farther inland, but be a bit lower overall.
Storm surge is also affected by the size of a storm, a larger storm with a bigger wind field will produce a larger surge than a storm surge, and surges will affect an area longer in a big storm than a small storm.
There is also how a storm approaches an area, and the width and slope of the bottom of the ocean.
Storm surge can be life threatening, the highest storm surge in the us was nearly 28 feet from Katrina in 2005. And even in recent years storm surge has been a factor in dozens of deaths, one of the more notable ones in recent years being hurricane Ian slamming Fort Myers Florida in 2022, which out of the 66 deaths directly caused by the storm, 41 were attributed to the storm surge which was around 10-15 feet of water.
NOAA released the 2025 Atlantic Hurricane Season Outlook on May 22; Atlantic hurricane season officially begins on June 1. This year, the prediction is between 13-19 named storms, with 6-10 storms becoming hurricanes, and 3-5 of those becoming major hurricanes. The average number of named storms in the Atlantic is around 14 named storms, 7 hurricanes, and 3 major hurricanes.
Probabilistically, there is a 60% chance of an above average season, a 30% chance of near normal, and a 10% chance of below normal. Only time till tell how this forecast does this year.