I wonder if you remembr the tornado that hit just accross the Ottawa river in Aylmer? Fortunatley, it's very rare in this part of the worl. We sent your question to a young scientist, N. in room 3. Here is the very good answer that we got.

A hurricane is a very strong tropical storm. A tropical storm does not start strong. At first it is like a group of thunder storms. When the group of thunder storms rotates with winds over 35 miles per hour, it is called a tropical storm. If the winds reach 75 miles per hour, the storm is officially a hurricane. A lot of things go into making it a hurricane, so it's difficult to say exactly how they form. Hurricanes form and develop at sea close to the Equator, mainly during late summer. when a hurricane forms, the water is usually very hot, the temperature is almost over 80o Fahrenheit. The hurricane gets warmth and moist from the warm sea and can gradually grow bigger and stronger, making the "eye" of the hurricane smaller. The winds of a strong hurricane may reach 300 kph and measure up to 200 kms across.

Hurricane winds get stronger as you go from the outer edges of the spiral toward the centre. They can reach speeds of over 150 miles per hour so you can imagine the damage done to coastlines when hurricanes strike.

In the "eye", however, the winds are very light. But the "eye" is very deadly because of the low pressure in the "eye", it sucks up tons of water and can cause the most damage if the storm is strong enough and if it reaches land. This is called a storm surge. Hurricanes need to be over warm water to stay strong. When a hurricane moves too far to the north where the water's temperatures are cold, it will weaken and eventually die out.

When hurricanes reach land, they often weaken quickly but can still cause a lot of damage. They can even change the coastlines. The storm surge can carry away anything in its path.

Books in Library: Number 551.5 and the encyclopedias

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