Hurricane vs Tornado - The Similarities and Differences (2024)

Hurricanes and tornadoes are both severe weather events that cause extensive damage and loss of life. However, they are fundamentally different in their formation, behavior, and the type of destruction they cause. Here is a look at the similarities and differences between a hurricane and a tornado.

Hurricane vs Tornado: Similarities

Before discussing their differences, it is essential to understand how hurricanes and tornadoes are similar.

• Both hurricanes and tornadoes are atmospheric disturbances powered by convective energy, or the rising of hot, moist air.
• Hurricanes and tornadoes rotate the same direction as each other. They are counter-clockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the southern hemisphere, although a few tornadoes rotate the opposite direction.
• Both involve powerful wind systems and cause extensive damage to human lives and property.
• Both phenomena occur in many parts of the world, albeit with different distribution patterns.
• Warning systems and forecasting methods exist for both to help mitigate their effects.

Differences Between Hurricanes and Tornadoes

Despite the similarities, there are many differences between a hurricane and a tornado:

Formation

Hurricanes form over warm ocean waters near the equator. They require a pre-existing disturbance, warm tropical oceans, moisture, and relatively light winds. If these conditions persist long enough, they can combine to produce the violent winds, incredible waves, torrential rains, and floods associated with this phenomenon. Because they require warm water, hurricanes mainly form during summer and autumn.

Tornadoes, on the other hand, form from severe thunderstorms. Sometimes a hurricane spawns tornadoes along its edges. A tornado requires a complex set of factors, including instability in the atmosphere, a pre-existing thunderstorm, and a change in wind direction and speed with height, referred to as wind shear. Tornadoes form year-round.

Size and Lifespan

In terms of size and lifespan, hurricanes are much larger and longer-lasting than tornadoes. A hurricane’s diameter can range from 100 to 2,000 kilometers (up to 1000 miles) and can last from several days to a couple of weeks. In contrast, a tornado’s diameter usually measures a mere 0.1 to 2.6 kilometers (a few feet to a couple of miles), and typically lasts for a few minutes to a couple of hours.

Damage Patterns

The wide-reaching wind field of a hurricane can lead to widespread damage. They often cause severe flooding due to heavy rainfall and coastal storm surges. But, hurricanes form over days so there is warning of their approach.

Tornadoes, being smaller and more intense, cause localized but potentially more catastrophic damage. Their high wind speeds can lead to the destruction of structures and lift large objects, like vehicles. Meteorologists issue a tornado watch when conditions are right for tornado formation, but there is not much warning when one actually forms.

Which Is Worse: A Hurricane or a Tornado?

Deciding whether a hurricane or a tornado is ‘worse’ is challenging because they cause different types of damage. The widespread damage caused by hurricanes, including massive flooding, can displace more people and cause more total damage. However, the localized, intense damage of a tornado can completely destroy structures and pose a more immediate threat to life for those directly in its path.

Furthermore, the danger of both a hurricane and a tornado can be influenced by many factors, including the specifics of the local geography, the preparedness of the affected communities, and the warning time available. While a hurricane causes more damage overall, there is a lot of warning before it arrives. There is little warning before a tornado.

Cyclone, Hurricane, and Typhoon: The Same but Different

While seemingly different, cyclone, hurricane, and typhoon describe the same weather phenomenon, just in different places around the world.

• Tropical Cyclone: A tropical cyclone is the generic term for a non-frontal synoptic scale low-pressure system over tropical or sub-tropical waters with organized convection and definite cyclonic surface wind circulation. A cyclone might become a depression, storm, hurricane, or typhoon, depending on its location and intensity.
• Hurricane: A hurricane is a tropical cyclone in the North Atlantic Ocean, the Northeast Pacific Ocean east of the dateline, or the South Pacific Ocean east of 160E.
• Typhoon: A typhoon is a tropical cyclone in the Northwest Pacific Ocean west of the dateline.

Storms move, so a hurricane in the Pacific can become a typhoon and vice versa.

Waterspouts and Their Types

Waterspouts are tornadoes that either form over bodies of water or when tornadoes move from land over water. Some meteorologists consider them separate from tornadoes if they form over water. They are often weaker than their land counterparts but still pose a threat to aircraft or boats that pass through them. There are two main types of waterspouts:

• Tornadic waterspouts: These are essentially tornadoes that form over water, or move from land to water. They have the same characteristics as a land tornado and are often associated with severe thunderstorms.
• Fair weather waterspouts: Unlike tornadic waterspouts, these form only in tropical and subtropical areas during high humidity and warm sea temperatures. They develop on the surface of the water and climb skyward in the absence of thunderstorms.

Interesting Facts about Hurricanes and Tornadoes

• During its lifetime, a hurricane releases as much energy as 10,000 nuclear bombs.
• The deadliest hurricane in U.S. history is the 1900 Galveston hurricane, which killed between 6,000 and 12,000 people. The deadliest tornado is the 1989 Daulatpur-Saturia tornado in Bangladesh, which killed around 1300 people.
• The fastest tornado wind speed ever recorded was 318 mph during the 1999 Moore, Oklahoma tornado.
• Tornadoes have been reported in every state in the United States and also in every season.
• Both a hurricane and a tornado have an “eye”, but it may be very small in a tornado.
• Tornadoes occur at any time of day but most often form in the late afternoon, when thunderstorms are more likely.

References

• Edwards, Roger; Ladue, James G.; Ferree, John T.; Scharfenberg, Kevin; Maier, Chris; Coulbourne, William L. (2013). “Tornado Intensity Estimation: Past, Present, and Future”. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. 94 (5): 641–653. doi:10.1175/BAMS-D-11-00006.1
• Grazulis, Thomas P. (2001). The Tornado: Nature’s Ultimate Windstorm. University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 978-0-8061-3258-7.
• Hill, Kevin A.; Lackmann, Gary M. (2009). “Influence of Environmental Humidity on Tropical Cyclone Size”. Monthly Weather Review. American Meteorological Society. 137 (10): 3294–3315. doi:10.1175/2009MWR2679.1
• Markowski, Paul M.; Straka, Jerry M.; Rasmussen, Erik N. (2003). “Tornadogenesis Resulting from the Transport of Circulation by a Downdraft: Idealized Numerical Simulations”. J. Atmos. Sci. 60 (6): 795–823. doi:10.1175/1520-0469(2003)060<0795:TRFTTO>2.0.CO;2
• Ramsay, Hamish (2017). “The Global Climatology of Tropical Cyclones”. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Natural Hazard Science. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199389407.013.79

Related Posts