Nowadays, a lot of people are familiar with Tropical Cyclones, which often cause severe damage to nature and humanity in certain regions of our globe. However, apart from previous sectors, shipping is equally effective by Cyclones. Nevertheless, what is that separates Tropical Cyclones by normal Storms and do them more powerful and severe? Due to the fact that storms and tropical cyclones in general tent to become more intense as a result of climate change, it is vital that we learn useful knowledge about them. Firstly, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) defines a Tropical Cyclone as an area of low pressure with a warm core at its center that develops over Tropical or Sub-Tropical waters and is depicted on a surface chart by a few closed circular isobars, with associated steep pressure gradients. Tropical Cyclones are often classified according to the intensity of their strongest related winds: • Tropical Depression (TD) – wind speed at the surface is less than 33 kts. • Moderate Tropical Storm (TS) – wind speed at the surface ranges between 34 and 47 kts. • Severe Tropical Storm (STS) – surface wind speeds between 48 and 63 kts. • Hurricane (Hu) – wind speed at the surface of 64 kts or higher. • Major Hurricane (MHu) – wind speed at the surface reaches 96 kts. Tropical cyclones are warm season phenomena. The peak frequency of these storms occurs after the maximum in solar radiation is received for the year, which occurs on June 22 in the Northern Hemisphere and December 22 in the Southern Hemisphere. The ocean surface reaches its maximum temperature several weeks after the solar radiation maximum, so most tropical cyclones occur during the late summer to early fall—that is, from July to September in the Northern Hemisphere and from January to March in the Southern Hemisphere.
Created by: Efstratios Avgerinos Meteorologist – Weather Routing Operator – Prime Navigation Shipping