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Daily Archives: August 20, 2013
Why are there so few hurricanes every year?
Forming over tropical oceans ensures that warm sea-surface temperature (SST) provides a mature hurricane with a means to warm and moisten the air that flows toward the important eye-wall convection. Thus, it is not surprising that hurricanes struggle to develop if the SST is not 79.7 degrees F or warmer. Tropical cyclones also require environments in which the wind speed and direction changes very little with increasing height, in other words, where the vertical wind shear is small. Continue reading