The sea surface is warmer in October, making hurricane formation more likely.
16-QT3. Would the winds of a hurricane decrease more quickly as the storm moves over cooler water or over warmer land? Explain.
The winds would decrease more quickly over land since the hurricane would be largely deprived of its principal energy source,
the latent heat of condensation, and since friction would be considerably greater than over water.
16-QT4. Explain why the surface water temperature of the ocean is usually cooler after the passage of a hurricane.
The larger amount of water evaporated by the hurricane's winds would cool the ocean.
16-QT5. Suppose, in the North Atlantic, an eastward-moving ocean vessel is directly in the path of a westward-moving hurricane. What would be the ship's wisest course)to veer to the north of the storm or to the south of the storm? Explain.
The ship should veer to the south of the storm since a westward moving northern-hemisphere hurricane will have its weakest winds to the south of its eye and its strongest winds to the north of its eye because of its counter-clockwise circulation.
16-PE1. A hurricane just off the coast of northern Florida is moving northeastward, parallel to the eastern seaboard. Suppose that you live in North Carolina along the coast: (a) How will the surface winds in your area change direction as the hurricane's center passes due east of you? Illustrate your answer by making a sketch of the hurricane's movement and the wind flow around it. (b) If the hurricane passes east of you, the strongest winds would most likely be blowing from which direction? Explain your answer. (Assume that the storm does not weaken as it moves northeastward.) (c) The lowest sea level pressure would most likely occur with which wind direction? Explain.
See figure. The red arrows on the map indicate the wind directions for the indicated position of the storm center. (a) The winds would change from E to NE to N to NW to W. The winds will be from the north to northwest when the hurricane's center is due east. (b) Over open water the strongest wind would be out of the northwest if the center passed to the east. However for the situation described the strongest winds might come from the northeast since the northwest and north winds would probably be reduced by friction as they blew over land and since the closest approach of the eye, directly to the southeast, would produce north to northeast winds. (c) Since the coast runs from southwest to northeast, the closest approach of the storm will occur when it is directly to the southeast. That will also be the moment of lowest barometric pressure and will be accompanied by north winds. (This question can also be intrepreted as asking the wind direction at the point of absolute lowest sea level pressure [the center of the eye of the hurricane]. At that point the only wind would be that associated with the net transport of the storm, and would therefore be out of the southwest since the storm is moving towards the northeast.)
16-PE2. Use the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale (see Table 16.2, p.455) and the text material to determine the category of each of the following hurricanes: (a) Hurricane Elena in Fig 16.2, p.439. (b) Hurricane Gloria in Fig.16.10, p.448. (c) Hurricane Hugo in Fig.16.12, p.452. (c) Hurricane Andrew in Fig.16.14, p.453.