I added this section to provide some basic information on hurricanes.

It is difficult to imagine the power these whirlwinds have ….. after all, they are just air….. how can they be that destructive?

I think everyone has experienced small whirling winds. I remember seeing these on hot summer days dance across the school playground. I would chase after them and try to catch the leaves and tiny pieces of paper these winds picked up. If they crossed a sandy area I would cough and get dust in my eyes. These skitish winds are based on the same scientific principles that govern hurricanes.

The difference is size. When I teach dinosaur classes I like to bring in a dinosaur egg to show how small the dinosaurs were when born….. an Apatasaurus was about a foot long. They would be great fun to have as pets, all cute and cuddly. But …. and I must add the but …. That tiny Apatasaurus grew and grew to be enormous creature towering over 50 feet in the air and weighing many tons. Hardly cute and cuddly, one misstep and our pet would squash us.

This is the perfect example for a hurricane. When the winds that create them are small they are great fun to play in. However, as they grow in size and magnitude the power they contain increases. From lifting tiny pieces of paper they gain the force to lift busses and houses.

Hurricanes are the biggest of these whirlwinds. They are spawned over the ocean and collapse when they pass over land. Michigan, where I live, will never see a hurricane. Instead we have tornadoes, which are similar. The main difference being tornadoes form over land, while hurricanes form over water. Tornadoes, although dangerous, do not contain the force and therefore the destructive power of their relatives … the hurricanes.

The process that forms these whirlwinds is easy to understand. It starts with the sun. Darn that sun …… It gives life to plants on the one hand, but forms hurricanes on the other. In fact the part of the sun that causes hurricane formation is the sun's warming heat. Darn again. Isn't that why we head towards the Coast ……… to be in the warming rays of the sun. So what blesses us one way curses us in another.

Ok, so the sun warms the earth, particularly the ocean waters of the Coast, then what. Well one of the properties of warm air is that it wants to rise. Think of a hot air balloon. Remember seeing those gas burners at the base of the balloon. They heat air, which rises and fills up the balloon. When the balloon is full of enough hot air it can lift the balloon, gondola, and people. Fun ride, but there is a down side to this fun. When the hot air goes up something must take its place. That something is cool air, it wants to sink and is only to happy (if it could be happy) to take the parking spot warm air leaves on the ground. Of course this cool air gets heated by the sun and then it wants to rise. What we don't see is that when the hot air gets way up in the sky it cools down. This cycle of heating…. rising ….. cooling …. sinking is a perpetual cycle …. At least as long as the sun is around to heat the earth.

This cycle of air is what creates our wind. The moving air, up and down and all around, produces wind, gentle breezes, storms, tornadoes and unfortunately hurricanes.

How strong the wind or storm or hurricane is, depends on the temperature difference between the hot air on the rise and the cool air heading toward the ground.

Now let's throw in another twist ….. and I mean litterly a twist ….. a twist of the earth. That's right the spinning earth. The wonderful spin that gives us night and day participates in hurricane formation. The Earth is a big solid rock, and so it has an affect on the rising hot and sinking cold air. The effect is exclusively reserved for hurricanes. It causes the rising and falling air to spin, yes I said spin. The earth causes the air spins counter clockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise south of the equator. That gets things going. It is one reason why hurricanes usually form close to the equator. It is where the earth is moving the fastest and can get the air spinning the fastest. Plus the equator is where the water is the warmest.

Now at this point I am going to leave out a lot of detail. It turns out that a hurricane has a lot of parts to its …… lets say “body”. We don't need to know all the parts. Scientists do. They have studied these parts carefully. It is hard for them, after all  to get in the middle of something tearing apart a house.  However, with airplanes and other clever measuring devices scientists learned, and continue trying to figure out all the parts of a hurricane.

Again to keep it simple the main thing to remember is air temperature. If the air has gotten good and warm then a hurricane is much more likely to form. The air temperature in the Gulf region is helped along by warm water, also heated by the sun. In fact it is the warm water that feeds the hurricane by heating the air just above water's surface. The hurricane season is limited to the warm summer months because that is when the air and water are heated the most.

So now we have got swirling spinning winds. If they spin fast enough then they begin falling in categories like, tropical storm and eventually enter the hurricane categories. Below are three charts that show the basic features of  of  hurricanes. Note the wind speeds at each level.




Scientist love to predict natural events like hurricanes. When scientists make accurate predictions then it shows how well they understand the laws that govern our world. Unfortunately, hurricanes have been elusive giving up their secrets. Unlike say, a mouse, you can keep in a cage to study, hurricanes go where they will when they want. This makes it tough for scientists. As a result when it is hurricane season scientists give their best guess or predictions. However, a hurricane's path is often different than predictions. Note the two charts below that show two years worth of hurricane tracts. They go anywhere and everywhere.




Scientists know that there is not a spot on the Atlantic and Gulf Coast that is not going to be hit by a hurricane sometime. Although scientists know this, FEMA, and a whole bunch of disaster relief agencies have chosen to ignore this basic reality. This is one reason I am …. very … very ….. gosh darn disappointed with FEMA and our politicians for not being prepared. This WAS predictable and the extent of the loss suffered was to some degree preventable. My gosh in the 50's our government was pouring money into nuclear fallout shelters which was unlikely to happen , but nothing into hurricane relief which was going to happen ……. Go figure.

Ok I'll get off the soap box …… but I mention this because if WE complain and fuss to our elected officials, they will move toward preparedness ….. but WE need to speak out, not stick our heads in the sand and wait for the next hurricane to tear up the Gulf Coast again....... and there will be a next time.

One final fact and then I will hush up. If you were sitting on top of a hurricane, in the driver seat so to speak, the hurricane will be spinning counter clockwise beneath you. The right side of the hurricane is going to probably strike the land first. The result of this is that the powerful winds of the hurricane are going to push the ocean water farther onto the land. It is this water that is going to cause flooding and lots of damage to buildings. The left side of the hurricane is comprised of wind blowing off the land. There is no water on land ….. right (usually) ….. so the damage is going to be caused by wind only. When
Katrina struck, New Orleans was on the left, and the Mississippi Coast was on the right.  So …… Mississippi suffered more damage than New Orleans because of all the water blown inland by the winds. However …… and this is one thing the engineers that designed the levies around New Orleans forgot … Lake Ponchatrain on the North side of New Orleans contains water .... correct ….so the hurricane blew this water into New Orleans because the wind was on the left side of the hurricane coming from the North. The levi's failed because they were not designed with this consideration in mind.

Whew …. I hope this all makes sense …… I hope all the pictures helped …… and I hope the reconstruction dollars that are being pumped into the levi's and other structures takes all of this into account for the next time…… and there will be a next time.