A Basic Question about Hurricanes

[Armstead]

This is a perhaps dumb question for the meteorologically astute. But I was wondering if this might be a partial explanation.

Does the formation of one hurricane create conditions that later create others? And does its' severity and nature help to determine what the following hurricanes will be like? Does each one feed off the previous one?

In other words, is a hurricane season like a chain reaction? If the early storms create certain conditions, does that trigger the next, and the next? Or is each hurricane a seperate event that is not linked to what happened before of after?

What got me thinking about this is the fact that there are "good years" and "bad years." You hear weathermen saying things like "The worst season for hurricanes since 1933" (I made up that year), which means that overall the degree of activity has gone up and down.

In current terms, did conditions created by Katrina set off Rita and Wilma and the weird shit that happened in the Northeast last week? OR is it more random than that, with each storm creating its own destiny from the beginning?

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

1. I don't know...

But I would suspect that they have either no effect or that the opposite would be true, since hurricanes actually suck heat out of the ocean, and heat in the ocean is one of the necessary ingreedients in hurricanes.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

2. Typically a hurricane reduces chances of an immediate follow-on hurricane

The hurricane stirs up the waters and mixes the temperature layers, so the surface water, which provides the energy, is not as hot. This reduces the chances that a hurricane will form in the same area or get as strong if it rolls over the same area. Notice that Katrina and Rita went north of Cuba and Wilma formed south of Cuba.

Basically, hurricanes are not connected, as far as I know.

[Bridget Burke]

8. That's what I've heard.

Hurricanes could be considered "connected" because they are related--all "children" of the conditions prevailing during that season. But one hurricane is more apt to discourage its follow up rather than encourage it. (Although quite a few people are still suffering from Rita.)

By the way, Wikipedia has a neat summary of this season's storms--so far:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Atlantic_hurricane_season

[ewagner]

3. Here's a good place to ask the question

http://flhurricane.com/cyclone/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=60598&Main=60549#Post60598

and no, it isn't a dumb question.

I only know a couple of things about which I learned from my son who is a meteorologist. First, the conditions that spawn hurricanes can remain constant and continue spawning others (warm ocean currents, upper air conditions etc) Second, once the hurricane is formed and starts moving it can stir up the ocean and bring cooler waters to the surface and inhibit other hurricanes from forming/strengthening.

This is admittedly incomplete information but on that site I referenced above, there are some really good mets (meteorologists) who will be happy to answer your question. :hi:

[phantom power]

4. The only interaction I know of is actually negative-feedback.

As a hurricane passes over the ocean, it cools the surface. That leaves less energy for any future hurricane. Of course, the gulf/carribean waters got so warm this year that even now their temperature is in the mid-80s, plenty warm to fuel a major hurricane, as we are seeing.

I did read a fun science fiction story called "Mother of Storms" (John Barnes), where "super-hurricanes" could actually create new storms, from their extra-powerful outflow channels. But that is science fiction.

Interestingly, that story began with a massive methane-release, which we are now seeing from the arctic tundra, so we may get to test Barnes' theory out, although his methane release was from methane clathrates in the sea floor. Also a possibility some day.

[FloridaPat]

9. I can verify this from experience. My first year in Florida I swam in

the ocean as much as possible. A small hurricane came near Miami and right after that the water was too cold for me to go swimming. The temperature went from the 80's to the 70's.

[AngryAmish]

5. I think just the opposite

I'm not an expert but I do watch cable tv.

Anyway, mr. sun warms the ocean. The water in the ocean evaporates and rises. It condenses up high as it cools. Forms clouds and eventually falls to earth as colder rain. Or even colder hail. This processes takes heat out of the ocean.

So the ocean cooling process would make more hurricanes less likely.

However, mr. sun has heated the ocean a whole lot. THat why conditions are the most likely for a lot of hurricanes.

Again I am not an expert and I invite corrections.

[ThomWV]

6. None Of The Above

This is the real easy version with simplifications galore.

A storm neither creates its own destiny or the destiny of any other storm to answer your last question first. That is not exactly true of course because the history of he planet's entire weather system is prelude to its current weather system. There was cause to the effect, you might say.

Hurricanes, to be understood easily, should be though of simply as heat moving machines. They take heat (energy) from an area of high concentration (the equator or thereabouts) and move it to an area of low concentration (colder area) which will always be located to the north in the northern hemisphere.

It takes water of at least 80 degrees F. to allow for the formation of a hurricane. The hotter the water (more energy) the greater the potential for the hurricane to grow, cooler water brings them down - crossing land for more than a couple of hours kills them.

Hurricanes (immense low pressure systems), just like magnets, are attracted to opposites, which in this case are high pressure systems. However they are generally pushed around by high altitude winds. They do not follow in the trough of their predecessor however.

Think of it his way. When one hurricane passes over a bit of water it takes the heat from that water and makes a storm out of it. The next hurricane that passes over that same water has less heat to work with if all else has remained the same (which it never does).

[Armstead]

11. Thanks..

One of the things I was wondering was if hurricanes are heat-moving machines, if the dispersed conditions would create more pressure somewhere else.

In other words, If you put a large rock in a small pool of water, the displaced water builds up pressure elsewhere in the pool.Toss in another rock and the water gets even more dispersed, building up even more pressure elsewhere in the pool, etc.

So if a superr storm like Katrina send more heat and pressure to other areas of the oceans, trhereby putting more pressure somewhere else.

[ThomWV]

13. Put This Picture In Your Mind

I want you to think of one of those swirling disks that they used to use in cartoons to signify hypnotism. A Hurricane swirls counterclockwise but all low pressure systems in the Northern Hemisphere swirl counterclockwise if looked on from above. In contrast high pressure systems swirl in a clockwise direction. Now, picture this. If a hurrican is moving across a map from right to left, which would be moving from the east to the west just like we see on the Weather Channel. It will be swirling counterclockwise. Now lets put a big high pressure system on the map too - but it will be swirling in the opposite direction and it will also be moving in the opposite direction, from left to right across the map, moving from west to east.

What you will see when these two meet will look something like a big letter "S" with the top half circle of the S moving one way and the bottom half moving the other and the arm inbetween will be the pathway by which hot and cold air exchange (wind cause by the movement from an area of high pressure to an area of low pressure). And that's really about it.

They move north to dump energy, they move west at first because of prevailing winds but in time they will shift back to the east as they continue north.

[Hissyspit]

7. No, you did not make up 1933: 'busiest season on record'

1969 was busy and then there is this year...

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/weather/hurricane/sfl-hc-history-1900to1950,0,142763.htmlstory
"1933 - This year was the busiest hurricane season on record with 21 hurricanes and tropical storms."

[Armstead]

10. I must have subconsciously remembered that

[Brotherjohn]

12. Storms do not (usu) affect each other. Any year's oceanic conditions...

... could be more or less favorable for storm formation. For instance, if the Gulf is warmer, as it seems to be this year.

That being said, the "usu" (usually) above... storms do not usually affect each other. In cases where they do, it's more likely that a prior storm would impact a subsequent storm negatively, and only then if they are in rapid succession.

A powerful weather system of any kind (including a hurricane) can shred a smaller system, or at least interrupt it. I think it was in 1995, when a series of storms not unlike this year hit the U.S., one brushed up against another to the point where one system affected the other's structure somewhat. They were far away in miles, but large enough and close enough where they "felt" each other.

Also, earlier this year, I believe, one of the storms (Cindy, perhaps?) mixed up the water enough near shore so as to cool it. This possibly led to the weakening of the next storm that approached the area (Dennis?). I remember Dennis was much stronger and weakened just before landfall, which is common. But the thinking this time was Cindy mixed up the shallow water near shore and sapped a lot of the heat energy.