Word: storm
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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ALLISON. BARRY. CHANTAL. DEAN. Erin. Felix. Gabrielle. Humberto. Iris. Jerry. Karen. Luis. If residents of low-lying coastal areas are anxious this summer, they have a dozen reasons--and more are undoubtedly on the way. The hurricane season has not yet peaked, but menacing storms are already rumbling across the Atlantic Ocean one after another, like warplanes taking off from a carrier deck. Last week alone, four ominously swirling air masses zigzagged across satellite weather maps, packed so close together that it almost seemed they might merge to form a single monster storm. "You feel like you're standing...
While boom-and-bust hurricane cycles lasting decades have been well documented, the reasons for them remain obscure. That's not the case for individual storms, though. Atlantic hurricanes inevitably get their start in Africa, where hot, dry air overlying the Sahara desert collides with cooler, moister air over the sub-Saharan region known as the Sahel. Under normal conditions, the collision produces eddies of low-pressure air that drift out over the ocean, where storm clouds begin to form. Most of the time, the clouds simply dump their load of rain and dissipate...
...energy, which forces the winds to whirl ever faster. Meanwhile, down at the surface, more warm air rushes in to replace what's risen, and it shoots upward in turn. After a few days of this self-sustaining process, a low-pressure tropical depression can escalate into a tropical storm and then, if the winds reach a sustained 75 m.p.h. or more, a full-blown hurricane...
...terrible, two-decade drought that plagued the African Sahel until lately also cut down on tropical storms, says Gray. Strong winds that accompanied this prolonged dry spell swept rain clouds away from the Sahel and sheared the tops off storm systems that might eventually have become hurricanes. Now that the drought has eased, these storms are more likely to persist and grow...
Earthquakes may get more press, but hurricanes can be far more destructive. "They are," Gray says, "the biggest natural threat facing the U.S." Nobody can predict whether a given storm will blast through a city or dissipate harmlessly at sea. But it doesn't take an atmospheric scientist to realize that the more storms there are, the greater the danger of disaster...