Hurricane Irma: What's the difference between a typhoon and a hurricane?

Hurricane season is causing devastation across the Atlantic with two tropical storms leaving a wake of death and destruction in the United States and the Caribbean. Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas at the end of August causing over 71 deaths and thousands of residents displaced. Now Hurricane Irma has ripped through the Caribbean leaving the island of Barbuda with 95% of its buildings destroyed. _______________ Read more: Death toll rises as Florida prepares for Irma's landfall _______________ What is a hurricane? Hurricanes are large swirling storms that produce winds of 74 miles per hour (119 kilometres per hour) or higher. How are they formed? A hurricane begins as a tropical disturbance in an area of warm ocean waters where rain clouds are building. A tropical disturbance can become a tropical depression, which is an area of rotating thunderstorms with winds of 38 mph. If winds increase to 39 mph, the depression becomes a tropical storm and if it increases to 74 miles per hour or higher, it becomes a hurricane. Experts still do not know why a hurricane forms but two key components are essential- warm ocean waters and winds that don’t change much in speed or direction as they go up into the sky. How are hurricanes categorised? Hurricanes are categorised by wind speed, with category 1 the slowest type of hurricane and category 5 the fastest. Category 1: Winds 74-95 mph (119-153 km/h) Category 2: Winds 96-110 mph (154-177 km/h) Category 3: Winds 111-129 mph (178-208 km/h) Category 4: Winds 130-156 mph (209-251 km/h) Category 5: Winds more than 157 mph (252 km/h) What is the difference between a typhoon and a hurricane? Hurricanes, cyclones, and typhoons are different names given to the same weather phenomenon. A hurricane is the name given to a disturbance in the Atlantic and Northeast Pacific, a typhoon is the term used in the Northwest Pacific and a hurricane or typhoon in the South Pacific and Indian Ocean is called a cyclone. Why are hurricanes named? A tropical storm is named and then that name passes onto the hurricane. Tropical storms and hurricanes are named in alphabetical order each year, taken from a list of names. There are six lists of hurricane names, which are reused every six years. If a hurricane causes a lot of destruction then its name will be removed from the list and replaced with another name. A reason for naming hurricanes is to keep track of them as there can be more than one hurricane at a time.

Hurricane Irma: What's the difference between a typhoon and a hurricane?

What are hurricanes and how are they formed?