What is the difference between a tornado and a hurricane?

Both tornadoes and hurricanes are characterized by extremely strong horizontal winds that swirl around their center and by a ring of strong upward motion surrounding downward motion in their center. In both tornadoes and hurricanes, the tangential wind speed far exceeds the speed of radial inflow or of vertical motion.

Hurricanes always and tornadoes usually rotate counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the southern hemisphere. The Earth's rotation determines this direction for the storms' rotation in each hemisphere. Local winds are sometimes able to cause a tornado to form that spins in the opposite direction from the typical direction for that hemisphere.

The most obvious difference between a tornado and hurricane is that a hurricane's horizontal scale is about a thousand times larger than a tornado. In addition, hurricanes and tornadoes form under different circumstances and have different impacts on the atmosphere.

Tornadoes are small-scale circulations, that are rarely more than a few hundred feet across when they touch the ground. Most tornadoes grow out of severe thunderstorms that develop in the high wind-shear environment of the United States Central Plains during spring and early summer.  Many tornadoes form when the large-scale wind flow leads to a violent clash between moist, warm air traveling north from the Gulf of Mexico and cold, dry, continental air coming from the United States Northwest. Tornadoes can also form in many other locations and from other forcing factors. For example, a hurricane making landfall may trigger many tornadoes to form.

Tornado wind speeds may reach 100 to 300 mph and cause havoc on the ground, but tornadoes typically last only a few minutes and rarely travel more than 10 or 20 miles along the ground. Tornadoes have little impact on storms that spawn them or collectively on the global circulation of the atmosphere.

Hurricanes, on the other hand, are large-scale circulations that are 60 to over 1,000 miles across. Hurricanes form near the Equator, generally between 5 and 20 degrees latitude, but never right on the Equator. Hurricanes always form over the warm waters of the tropical oceans and generally where the sea-surface temperature exceeds 26.5°C (76°F).

A hurricane may travel thousands of miles and persist over several days or weeks. During its lifetime, a hurricane will transport a significant amount of heat up from the ocean surface and into the upper troposphere or even lower stratosphere. Even though hurricanes form only sporadically, they do affect the global atmosphere's circulation in measurable ways, although this is still an active area of research.

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2002

GPM Overpass of Hurricane Idalia
After threatening much of Florida’s western coast, Hurricane Idalia made landfall Wednesday morning in the Big Bend region of Florida’s northwest coast near Keaton Beach at 7:45 a.m. EDT, Aug. 30, as a strong Category 3 storm with sustained winds reported at 125 mph by the National Hurricane Center. Idalia’s formation was somewhat unusual. Typically, when entering the heart of the hurricane season tropical storms and hurricanes form and expand eastward across the tropical Atlantic region towards Africa’s coast. However, storms occasionally still form in the western Caribbean, as was the case
GPM Overpass of Tropical Storm Franklin on Aug. 29 2023
After becoming a tropical storm in the east-central Caribbean on the afternoon of Aug. 20 and moving generally westward for two days, Tropical Storm Franklin took a northward track and struck the southern coast of the Dominican Republic south of Barahona on the morning of Aug. 23 as a moderate tropical storm with sustained winds reported at 50 mph by the National Hurricane Center (NHC). Franklin brought heavy rains and flooding to the area, resulting in landslides, power outages and at least 2 fatalities in the Dominican Republic according to media reports . After traversing the mountainous
IMERG rainfall totals from Hurricane Hilary.
Hurricane Hilary is being hailed as a historic storm after becoming the first tropical storm to hit California since Sept. 24, 1939. The storm has had a large impact on the region - in addition to gusty winds, Hilary’s rains have resulted in widespread flooding, landslides, washed out roads and numerous other closures. Like most East Pacific tropical cyclones, Hilary originated from a westward propagating tropical wave that crossed over Central America from the western Caribbean into the eastern Pacific. Known as “African easterly waves”, these are the same waves that emerge off the coast of
GPM Overpass of Typhoon Khanun
The Northwest Pacific typhoon season has been quite active recently. Following in the wake of Super Typhoon Doksuri, which skirted the northern tip of Luzon July 25 and 26 and continued on to bring extreme rainfall to southeast coast of China, is yet another powerful storm - Typhoon Khanun. Khanun (known as “Falcon” in the Philippines) began in the West Pacific Ocean as an area of disturbed weather on July 24 situated well south of Guam and east of Palau. Over the next several days the system slowly intensified as it tracked northwestward towards the Ryuku Islands of southern Japan, becoming a
GPM Overpass of Hurricane Calvin on July 14
After a quiet start, the 2023 eastern Pacific hurricane season recently picked up in activity with the formation of the season’s first major hurricane, Hurricane Calvin. Calvin originated on July 11 from an area of low pressure located about 510 miles (~820 km) south-southwest of Manzanillo, Mexico, which had become organized enough for the National Hurricane Center (NHC) to declare it Tropical Depression 3E (TD 3E) that afternoon. Located over warm sea surface temperatures (SSTs) of around 84 oF (29 oC), thunderstorm activity near the center of TD 3E continued to increase overnight, and