tropical cyclones

[PLANET THANET]

Can you help my daughter with her GCSE geography homework please? Why do storms have their orgins in the tropics? Ideally i could do with two reasons. Many thanks, planet thanet

p.s. Hope this is in the correct topic-if not sorry.

[Supercell]

Hi,

Tropical cyclones require sea temperatures to be above 26C. Groups of thunderstorms gather together and begin to rotate around an "eye" at the centre. It is the coriolis effect that causes the storm system to rotate.Once a TC makes landfall it is deprived of the heat and moisture necessary to continue to fuel itself.

An addition - Tropical cyclones do not form within 5 degrees (or so) north and south of the equator. This is becuase the coriolis effect is weak, thunderstorms remain separate.

[Paranoid]

There are a few exceptions however. Some storms form outside of those positions and without those conditions. Hurricanes Vince and Epsilon in 2005 formed over waters 21-24c.

In 2001, tropical storm Vamei formed at 1.4' N, and Cyclone Agni formed within 50 miles of the Equator.

I found Wikipedia to be extremley helpful when looking for these sort of things. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_cyclones

[Supercell]

Absolutely. But GCSE does not cover tropical cyclones in much depth. I just posted the general idea.

Edited November 23, 2006 by Supercell

[Paranoid]

I know. I don't think we're even doing Tropical Cyclones in our GCSE. Most of our work is focused on human geography instead of physical geography.

[kold weather]

Yeah what you've wrote is perfectly fine and i don't think you couold ad dmuch to that without going into more details that would probably start to make things a little more confusing such as those rare times when you get hurricanes in SSTs below 26C...I've wrote quite abit those more complicated things mind you!

[PLANET THANET]

Hi all

Many thanks from myself and my daughter for all the replies recieved to my question , she is very happy with the result and will use all the information. I personally do not post on here much but lurk in the shadows mostly every evening looking , learning and having a laugh at some off the comments, this is I feel an excellent site for novices and experienced alike.

once again many thanks................PLANET THANET :unsure: