Winds greater than 100 miles per hour, whole cities turned into void within a few hours, disconnected families bound to start their lives over again, outbreak of infectious diseases are just a few of the things left behind after a hurricane has made its landfall. Hurricanes are one of the most catastrophic natural disasters that are complex to understand. To have knowledge on hurricanes it is essential to be acquainted of what a hurricane is, how and when they form, their characteristics, the areas impacted by them and also the efforts made for recovery and restoration of destroyed areas.
What is a hurricane?.
A hurricane is an extremely large, powerful, and devastating storm with very strong winds. Hurricanes can only form over really warm ocean waters, which is why most of the hurricanes usually form between June and November. Hurricanes are formed when a defined pattern of climatic conditions are encountered that account to rise of a wind storm with speeds of at least 74 miles per hour. Albeit these conditions often being met, only few times a storm develops into a hurricane. [1].
Hurricane Formation.
A storm essentially goes through several stages before it is classified as a hurricane. Initially, a tropical disruption or a system of thunderstorms that stays more than twenty four hours after its formation in the tropics. Sometimes tropical disruptions start as waves, which are areas of low pressures that are inserted in the tropical easterly winds. As the wind speed attains high speeds and said low-pressure system develops a circulating area of wind around it, the disruption turns into a tropical depression. If speed of these winds reaches thirty-nine miles per hour then the system is classified as a tropical storm and presented with a name. Once reaching this stage the storm can do either of the following, further strengthen into a categorized hurricane. [1, 2].
Hurricane Katrina.
Some of the most catastrophic hurricanes have put many lives in chaos.
