Tropical Cyclones

A tropical cyclone is the most powerful storm on Earth: a spinning engine of cloud up to 800 kilometres across that draws its energy from warm tropical seas. Known as a hurricane in the Atlantic, a typhoon in the western Pacific and a cyclone in the Indian Ocean, it is the same fearsome weather system under three different names. When one makes landfall it can flatten towns with its winds, drown coastlines beneath a storm surge and trigger flooding and landslides far inland.

In this lesson you will learn the exact conditions a tropical cyclone needs to form, why it can only develop over particular oceans and latitudes, and how its eye, eyewall and rain bands are arranged. You will then work through the Environmental Management chain of cause, impact and management, using real storms such as the record-breaking Hurricane Patricia of 2015 and the deadly Bhola cyclone of 1970 to see how preparation can mean the difference between a near miss and a catastrophe.