Talk:Tropical cyclone

Nominated by Kathy T 21:55, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)

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Two points:

• Why is it _tropical_ cyclone and not just cyclone? There's probably some explanation for that, and that should be somewhere in the first paragraph of the article.
• The section on Cyclone Tracy should be a separate article, I think.

jheijmans, Friday, June 28, 2002

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"Typhoon" is an unusual word, in that it has two possible reasonable etymologies, from rather distinct linguistic sources: the Chinese tai-fung meaning "great wind" and the associated Japanese dai-fûn or tai-fûn; and the Greek name Typhon, the name of a monster associated with the wind. In fact, the English word comes first from the Greek via the Arabic tufân -- the Chinese is a fortuitous false cognate.

Merge with hurricane

(William M. Connolley 22:23, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)) This article has been merged with hurricane (by me). Because they are different names for the same thing. I don't think I lost any info along the way. Save 1 was the first merge. I'm now going to eliminate some redundant stuff.

BTW, I don't know what to do about the other-languages stuff. There are now de: links to typhoon and hurricane, and the others are now a mixture. Well, someone who speaks those languages will have to do it.

Location

Location: "...such cyclones almost never form within 10 degrees of the equator (where the Coriolis effect is weakest). However it is possible for tropical cyclones to form within this boundary if another source of initial rotation is provided. These conditions are extremely rare and such storms are believed to form at a rate of less than one a century." Should this be edited to include Hurricane Ivan, which became a hurricane at 9.9 N?

vaeiou, Tuesday, September 7, 2004

Ivan is covered by "almost never". If you want a specific mention of Ivan, you should wait for an explanation of how it defied the odds. Otherwise the mention doesn't really serve a purpose. -- Cyrius|✎ 13:39, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 14:11, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)) I changed it to say "about 10 degrees" anyway: 10 isn't some absolute barrier, more a rule-of-thumb.

Quite true. -- Cyrius|✎ 14:37, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

2*10^19 watts?

In the Effects section, we say that a mature cyclone can release heat at a rate of 2*10^19 watts, and that this is 200 times world electrical generating capacity. Something must be wrong with one of those numbers. If world electrical generating capacity were the implied 10^17 watts, that would be 10^8 gigawatts. In another article we say that US generating capacity is something like 600 gigawatts. The US can't account for less than 1/10,000 of the world's electric capacity, can it?

Let's find out the real numbers and put them in, if possible. I suspect the number that is wrong is the 200.

Source for the figures

See http://www.noaa.gov/questions/question_082900.html

Now considering that this is the "Effects" section of our article, I would be inclined to attach more importance to the NOAA estimate of kinetic energy, which does the actual work/damage, rather than total heat release, whose effects are more related to the maintenance of the beast. The kinetic energy dissipation rate given for a typical hurricane is in the order or 1.5 x 10¹² watts. I don't have a figure for world wide electricity consumption, but frankly I think the article can do without that tidbit. Girouette 01:45, 2004 Sep 12 (UTC)

history of tropical cyclone meteorology ?

When did meteorologists (or scientists, or philosophers) first notice the cyclone nature of these storms? How has our knowledge of tropical cyclones changed over time? I'm particularly curious about early changes in knowledge. Obviously with the advent of satellite photography great strides must have been made in understanding... 12.7.173.34 04:06, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I am not a historian, but I am a meteorologist, so I will venture some thoughts. Cyclones were probably perceived as rotating entities some time before the dynamics were understood. A clever observer with a wind vane and good record-keeping may have been able to surmise the existence of cyclones, by analysing over some months or years the turning of the wind before, during and after bad weather. Googling along those lines, it seems one Herr Professor Dove did just that around 1827, according to this :

http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/sci/history/AHistoryofScienceVolumeIII/chap41.html

So Professor Dove looks to have claim to the discovery of cyclones.

Girouette 02:25, 2004 Sep 12 (UTC)

1827, wow, that is fairly recently. I look forward to reading more about this some day. Perhaps you (or even I <gasp>) will reseearch the topic and write an article some day. Thanks for the information! --Funkyj 07:37, 2004 Sep 12 (UTC)

willy-willy

I always thought that "willy willy" refers to a sort of small tornado-ey thing that you get out in the desert, caused by the air being heated by the ground.

BTW: aboriginal languages seem to use word doubling like this to create proper names. Many place names in Australia are like this (Wagga Wagga, Gin Gin).

(William M. Connolley 08:34, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)) So did I. But I'm not really sure... EB sez: "in western Australia, any large, travelling tropical cyclone", though.

Global warming?

Should reference be made to the possible role of global warming? A recent article, Frances, Ivan part of record-setting period for storms http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee/news/politics/9621908.htm states

“The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has computer models that predict that as the world warms, hurricanes will get stronger … ”

“ ‘The Atlantic is a degree warmer than average this year. That may be a part of what's causing what's going on,’ said Willoughby, who used to direct the federal government's Hurricane Research Division.”

The article includes several excellent references to online research tools, including

• The National Hurricane Center: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov
• NOAA's calculation of the Accumulated Cyclone Energy index: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/outlooks/background_information.html
• A chart of 54 years of Accumulated Cyclone Energy indices: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/outlooks/figure4.gif
• William Gray's hurricane season forecasts: http://hurricane.atmos.colostate.edu/forecasts/

(William M. Connolley 15:33, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)) I recommend: http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/091.htm#2731

To paraphrase NOAA's Hurricane FAQ, the upswing in the number of hurricanes in recent years seems to be the result of a several-decade long Atlantic ocean temperature cycle. We're just on the high side after a quiet period lasting from the 1970s into the mid 90s. -- Cyrius|✎ 16:36, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Unsigned comment about Wikipedia's coverage of hurricanes

moved from the Village pump

Hurricanes on the other side of North and South America. It's like they don't exist. And they seems rather large as well. Just my two cents.

I've raised this topic as well, and have been pondering creating a 2004 Pacific hurricane season when I have a few minutes of spare time. Might hunker down tonight and do that. Might want to confine it to East Pacific though, and leave West Pacific typhoon season to another page. --Golbez 16:22, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)

End moved discussion

Who names them

Who or what group of people are responsible for naming hurricanes etc.? Is there already a long list to choose from and does it have to be 3 female names then a male name and back to female names again? Thanks.

The article says so, in the "Naming of Tropical Cyclones" section. --Golbez 22:32, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)

Ivan notable?

Is the reason it is notable due to the low latitude Category 4 strength or the death toll? If the former, it should probably be rewritten to indicate the 135 mph wasn't the storm peak. If it's the death toll, we'll probably need to make room for Jeanne (as well as clean the Ivan entry up). -- Xylaan 22:27, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)