Stay Ahead of the Storm: How to Track Hurricanes

Hurricanes can be destructive and even deadly, so staying informed and up to date on the latest hurricane activity is important. By tracking hurricanes, Public storms you can make sure you have time to prepare yourself and your family if a storm is headed your way. There are several ways to stay informed on the latest hurricane activity.

Key takeaways :

• Learning, What is Hurricane ?
• How do we  use a hurricane tracker to stay ahead and protect ourselves
• A Clear understadnign of types of hurricane trackers acquanted with technologies namely the Satellite Images, Radar Images and the Computer Models and Hurricane Forecasts

What is Hurricane?

Hurricane is a tropical storm rotating storm system characterized by lower pressure, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral wave of thunderstorms that produces heavy rainfalls.

To help you prepare in case of a hurricane, here are some of the helpful sites that can really come in handy.

• Weather Underground – Weather timing and tracking.
• Storm Central – Very visual and easy to understand.
• Weather Channel – Real-time radar information and severe weather alerts. This site also provides a storm tracker map with all active tropical cyclones worldwide.

Hurricane Tracker – Hurricane tracker map with real-time hurricanes across the world including Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and New Jersey. There are also options to track many different types of natural disasters, such as tornado warnings, snow conditions, and earthquakes.

How do we use a hurricane tracker to stay ahead and protect ourselves?

At the University of Florida, it’s very important to have realistic expectations of Hurricane Irma. Here are some key points we want you to know:
– Hurricane Irma was the most powerful hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic. Nothing happens within the eye of the storm, so don’t be alarmed if there is a lot of activity outside of it. Sometimes it may be difficult to see what is happening outside because of all the wind and rain that can be seen within the eye of the storm.
– Miami and Key West will have “life-threatening” conditions (hurricane-force winds, tropical-storm-force winds, or both) if this occurs. There will potentially be a lot of flooding along coastal areas but people should continue with normal routines.

 

Types of hurricane trackers :

Do you know the difference between a ridge-following, upper-level trough, and a cold front? If not, you might want to read on! The three hurricane trackers are all different in their own ways. There are advantages and disadvantages for each of these tracking systems that we will be exploring in this article.

The difference is in what’s known as “wind speed potential”, or the amount of energy that can contribute to the total wind speeds generated by an existing tropical cyclone.

Ridge-following hurricane trackers

Ridge-following hurricane trackers are the most common type of hurricane tracker. The reason for this is that there is a large area of low pressure that exists at the center of the Atlantic tropical cyclones and this low pressure is a perfect area for upper-level troughs to get stuck, therefore creating ridge-following hurricane trackers. When this happens, they tend to stay in the same area for several days and even weeks. This leads to elongated tropical cyclone paths and less targetable areas. The radar images that show up on weather maps as a ridge-following tracker tend to be linear but not very well defined. air, or a ridge, that allows for higher wind speeds and thus more energy for the tropical cyclone to feed off of. While the wind speeds are relatively higher in this type of tracking system, it also comes with drawbacks.

Computer Models and Hurricane Forecasts

As with any scientist, forecasters must be able to predict where a tropical cyclone might go. With no winds aloft, there are fewer chances for tropical cyclones to get their energy from and so the forecasters have a hard time measuring the wind speed and intensity of these systems. The only reliable way for forecasters to measure wind speed is if there is a surface-based hurricane tracker (such as those discussed earlier in this article) or a radar system that picks up outflow from hurricanes as they cross over land.