Question

How would you compare and contrast a tornado and hurricanes in terms of size, duration and wind speed?

Answer 1

Hint: In certain ways, hurricanes and tornadoes are similar. Both generate powerful, whipping winds that can leave a trail of death and devastation in their wake.

Hurricanes and tornadoes, on the other hand, vary in important respects, such as scale and length, as well as how, where, and where they shape.

Complete answer:
The most significant distinctions between hurricanes and tornadoes are their size and length. Hurricanes usually have a diameter of hundreds of miles and bring strong winds and heavy rainfall to the whole area.

Sandy, the strongest storm to ever strike the United States, was 1,000 miles strong when it crashed into New York and New Jersey in 2012, causing more than $70 billion in damage and killing more than 175 people.

Tornadoes are usually just a few hundred feet across, but one in central Oklahoma in 2013 was over two miles wide. Hurricanes can last days, weeks, or even months. Tornadoes usually live for a few minutes.

Hurricanes grow above the equator and far from land in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. According to Richard Pasch, a senior hurricane expert at the National Hurricane Center in Miami, "their energy supply is the warm ocean waters."

In the humid, moist atmosphere over the tropical ocean, a hurricane usually begins as a surge of low-pressure air. As the storm expands and rises, it pulls in warm air and water vapour, creating thunderclouds and beginning to spin in response to Earth's rotation.

According to Bill Bunting, the chief of forecast operations at the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center in Norman, tornadoes, or twisters, shape over land during so-called supercell thunderstorms, which generate strong updrafts of wind that twist as they grow.

Note: The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale assigns a five-point rating to hurricanes. The Enhanced Fujita Scale is a six-point scale that is used to rate tornadoes.