Hurricane storms

How do cyclones form?:

Thermal lows form over land, but hurricane storms form over ocean waters. What happens if a low pressure area contains a lot of heat and moisture, and the air converges (comes together) at low levels? It must then rise. While doing so it cools, then liquid water condenses, giving off extra heat to make it more buoyant.

If this is strong enough, they give it a special name. Conditional instability of the second kind, or CISK. And it fuels the greatest storms.

Here is what we need:

1 - Warm water, at least 26°C, and it has to be quite deep.

2 - Some coriolis force, at least that found at latitudes of 5° from the equator or more.

3 - Not too much wind shear. Don't want to rip the thing apart.

4 - A seed. A disturbance which grows into a hurricane.

5 - To go with the low-level convergence, the opposite must occur somewhere above at high altitudes.

With all this in place, a stream of air keeps rising like a continuous bubble. And it feeds back on itself. The lift causes condensation which provides extra heat to give more lift.

What happens?

West winds start blowing, indicating something unusual is about to take place. Over the course of the next day or so, it keeps getting more intense. We call this the formative stage which lasts until the wind reaches 63 knots or greater.

Next we have the immature stage. It lasts from the hurricane wind speed is reached until the minimum pressure and strongest winds are reached.

After this, the storm lasts for several days but usually becomes an extra-tropical cyclone, by drifting far enough from the equator. This is the mature stage. The storms usually go poleward and will encounter westerlies, which changes everything.

Now it's time for the decaying stage. There is no more warm water and the thing eventually dies.

Of course it's much more technical than this, but you can get the idea.

What to call it?

A few humorous remarks