Texas and the Gulf Coast continue to feel the effects Hurricane Harvey which brought with it severe floods.

The Weather Channel compiled a list Top 10 Worst Hurricanes(and the floods they caused) in US history, including those that have not yet been named.

Hurricane in Galveston, September 1900

Hurricane in Miami, September 1926

The storm hit Miami when the people of South Florida were not yet as prepared for the elements as they are now. The storm killed 372 people, according to the Red Cross, and about 150 others drowned when water broke the Moore Haven dam in several places.

Hurricane in South Florida, September 1928

A Category 5 hurricane raged near West Palm Beach. Heavy rainfall caused Lake Okeechobee to overflow its banks, flooding the surrounding area to a depth of over 10 feet. About 2500 people drowned, more than 1700 houses were flooded.

Hurricane Labor Day, September 1935

The storm hit the Florida Keys with winds up to 185 mph and 20-foot waves. The hurricane killed 408 people, most of them World War I veterans working on construction sites in the area, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Long Island Hurricane, September 1938

This storm and winds up to 180 miles per hour killed 256 people on Long Island on their way to New England. Houses were destroyed in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. Damage amounted to $306 million.

Hurricane Camille, August 1969

Camille hit the Mississippi coast, causing waves up to 24 feet high. More than 140 people died in cities along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, another 113 - in a flood in Virginia.

Hurricane Andrew, August 1992

Andrew was a short but fierce storm that hit South Florida with the strength of a Category 5 hurricane. Then the hurricane dropped to the 3rd category and reached Louisiana. 65 people died, 127,000 houses were damaged and destroyed, and the damage amounted to $26 billion.

Hurricane Charlie, August 2004

The main force of the storm fell on Florida and South Carolina. 10 people were killed, and property damage from the destruction is estimated at 15 billion dollars.

Hurricane Katrina, August 2005

According to federal agency Katrina, a Category 3 hurricane, killed about 2,000 people and caused $100 billion in damage. The water broke through the dams and flooded 80% of the territory of New Orleans, Louisiana.

Storm Sandy, October 2012

Photo: NOAA NWS National Hurricane Center

Hurricane Irma, which hit the Caribbean and Florida, is called the strongest in the Atlantic on record, moreover, it brought terrible destruction and led to dozens of deaths. It is possible that his name will never again be used by meteorologists to name hurricanes in the future, so as not to remind people of the tragic events.

The Voice of America publication talked about how and why hurricanes get their names.

Why do hurricanes have names

Initially, the name is given to a storm, which later weakens or develops into a hurricane. Nameless storms and hurricanes would greatly complicate the lives of meteorologists, researchers, ship captains, rescuers, and just ordinary people. Names make communication easier, which means they increase security. That is why the World Meteorological Organization has created a special list of names for the elements, which is updated every year.

What were hurricanes called before the advent of the naming system

Hurricanes were often named after saints. For example, the hurricane that reached Puerto Rico on July 26, 1825, the day of St. Anne, was called St. Anne. Sometimes the name of the area that suffered the most was chosen as the name. And sometimes the shape of the hurricane dictated the name. That's how the Pin Hurricane got its name in 1935.

How many names are on the list

Every year, 21 names are included in the list - the number of all letters in the alphabet, except for Q, U, X, Y and Z - they are not used. Names are used in order: the first storm of the season is called by a name that begins with A, the second with B, and so on.

But what if all the letters in the alphabet are over?

This happens extremely rarely: usually the number of tropical storms and hurricanes does not exceed 21. If this does happen, the Greek alphabet comes to the rescue. Hurricanes are named Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, etc.

When are hurricanes called by female names, and when are they called by male names?

At first, the Hurricanes were exclusively "women". Attribute to natural disasters female names started by military meteorologists during World War II. In 1953, this method was officially approved. But since 1978, after a lawsuit, the situation has changed: hurricanes began to be given and male names.

How many names have already been "used up" by meteorologists this year?

For Atlantic coast The list of hurricane names for 2017 looks like this: Arlene, Bret, Cindy, Emily, Franklin, Harvey, Irma, Jose, Katya, Lee, Maria, Ofelia, Phillip, Rina, Sin, Tammy, Vince and Whitney. Florida and Georgia are currently experiencing the effects of Hurricane Irma. Storms Jose and Katya have already formed in the Atlantic and have received their names. That is, 9 more names from the list of 2017 remained unused.

Can a hurricane's name "retire"?

Maybe if the elements were too destructive. In this case reuse the same name may be too painful for those affected. For example, there will be no more hurricane Katrina. It has been removed from the list of names and will never be used again. There is a possibility that the same fate awaits the names of Harvey and Irma.

Hurricanes are given names. This is done in order not to confuse them, especially when several tropical cyclones operate in the same area of ​​the world, so that there are no misunderstandings in weather forecasting, in issuing storm alerts and warnings.

Prior to the first naming system for hurricanes, hurricanes were given their names randomly and randomly. Sometimes the hurricane was named after the saint on whose day the disaster occurred. So, for example, the hurricane Santa Anna, which reached the city of Puerto Rico on July 26, 1825, received its name, on St. Anna. The name could be given according to the area that suffered the most from the elements. Sometimes the name was determined by the very form of development of the hurricane. So, for example, the hurricane "Pin" No. 4 got its name in 1935, the shape of the trajectory of which resembled the mentioned object.

An original method of naming hurricanes, invented by Australian meteorologist Clement Rugg, is known: he named typhoons after members of parliament who refused to vote for the allocation of loans for meteorological research.

The names of cyclones were widely used during the Second World War. Air force meteorologists naval forces The United States monitored typhoons in the northwestern part of Pacific Ocean. To avoid confusion, military meteorologists named typhoons after their wives or girlfriends. After the war, the US National Weather Service compiled alphabetical list female names. The main idea of ​​this list was to use short, simple and easy to remember names.

By 1950, the first system in the names of hurricanes appeared. First they chose the phonetic army alphabet, and in 1953 they decided to return to female names. Subsequently, the assignment of female names to hurricanes entered the system and was extended to other tropical cyclones - to Pacific typhoons, storms of the Indian Ocean, the Timor Sea and the northwest coast of Australia. I had to streamline the naming procedure itself. So, the first hurricane of the year began to be called a female name, starting with the first letter of the alphabet, the second - with the second, etc. The names were chosen to be short, easy to pronounce and easy to remember. For typhoons, there was a list of 84 female names. In 1979, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), in conjunction with the US National Weather Service, expanded this list to include male names as well.

Since there are several basins where hurricanes form, there are also several lists of names. There are 6 alphabetical lists for Atlantic Basin hurricanes, each with 21 names, used for 6 consecutive years and then repeated. If there are more than 21 Atlantic hurricanes in a year, the Greek alphabet will come into play.

In the event that a typhoon is particularly destructive, the name given to it is struck off the list and replaced by another. so name Katrina forever crossed off the list of meteorologists. According to the message news agency The Associated Press has permanently removed Irene from its list of hurricane names. In August 2011, the Irene crossed the Caribbean Sea, killing three people in Haiti, five in Dominican Republic, and 41 in the US. Damage from Hurricane Irene was estimated at $15 billion. By decision of the National Hurricane Center, Irene will be replaced in the list of names with a new name - Irma.

In the Pacific Northwest, typhoons have the names of animals, flowers, trees, and even foods: Nakri, Yufung, Kanmuri, Kopu. The Japanese refused to give female names to the deadly typhoons, because they consider women there to be gentle and quiet creatures. And the tropical cyclones of the northern Indian Ocean remain nameless.

The United States has been at the epicenter of a natural disaster for several weeks. Now here, climatologists say, is a tropical depression. It turns out that such a depressed state happens not only in humans, nature is also subject to it. The weather, like a person, is often capricious: either the strongest downpours are pouring, or the strongest winds are raging. The correspondent of the MIR 24 TV channel, Rodion Marinichev, understood the causes and consequences.

Hurricanes every day

Laura Costello from the Florida town of Islamorada jokes that now it's time to call her Dorothy. The famous children's story that begins with a hurricane is now on almost everyone's lips in Florida. If he was able to save himself - this is already happiness.

“I knew that when I returned, I would see exactly this. And I've only been a month since I moved here, and for another last week everything was wonderful! Now you have to start all over again. But at least she remained alive - and thanks for that, - the woman says.

“Of course, I understood that the fence, most likely, would not stand. And that there will be a lot of garbage - we knew where the wind was blowing from. But we didn’t expect to find someone’s yacht and part of a fishing schooner on our site, ”said local Orlando Morejon.

There is so much destruction that even the army had to be used to clear the rubble.

“I think it would be nice to think about resetting this treaty, rethinking this global problem. After all, it really causes concern for many, including me, ”admitted climatologist Judith Curry.

American climatologists began to study the dependence of hurricanes on global warming 12 years ago, after a devastating one. Then almost the whole of New Orleans went under water, almost 2 thousand people died. Dozens of scientific papers soon appeared.

“One of my colleagues seriously dealt with this topic. He failed to prove that the strength of hurricanes is directly related to climate change. But here's what's interesting: Category 4 and 5 hurricanes have actually doubled in the last 40 years,” Curry said.

Another popular word last week- Gulfstream. The ocean current, which forms the climate of the Atlantic, warms up too much in the southern part. It is precisely along this trajectory that many hurricanes move, including Irma.

"Superheated tropical water in the South Atlantic - it simply has to generate not one, but a whole series of hurricanes, which, in fact, happened," host researcher Institute of Cell Biophysics RAS, specialist in global ecology Alexey Karnaukhov.

"Irma" was perceived by many Americans as the main national enemy, but someone takes bold selfies with a hurricane. And, for example, in Florida "Irma" from a real weapon. The state authorities had to specifically ask not to do this.

By the way, Donald Trump himself can consider himself a victim of Irma. Hurricane one of his favorite $30 million Florida residences. In the meantime, the President regularly visits the areas affected by hurricanes and even participates in the distribution humanitarian aid. In the end, the hurricanes even added some points to Trump: his rating grew from 37 to 39%.

He managed to extract another short-term benefit from the Irma. Under the pretext of fighting the elements, the president persuaded senators to raise the national debt limit. This week, it topped $20 trillion for the first time in history.

Tornadoes and tornadoes are natural disasters that are caused by strong wind currents. Spinning into funnels, they descend to the surface of the earth, destroying buildings, cars and trees, and often people die as a result of their appearance. Tornadoes in the United States occur most often compared to other countries, according to statistics, there are an average of about 700 tornadoes here annually.

Origin of tornado

The nature of the origin and occurrence of a tornado is the collision of two oppositely directed strong winds. When passing thundercloud the headwind abruptly changes direction and blows vertically upwards, then falls down. Sometimes the updraft and downdraft meet inside the cloud and begin to spiral, which becomes the beginning of a tornado.

Such a swirling column of air in meteorology is called a mesocyclone. A mass of rotating air is a vortex or whirlpool. There's a fall inside of him atmospheric pressure, due to which the suction of ambient air is greatly increased. As they grow, such tornadoes gain power and begin to rotate faster. Moreover, the speed of movement of a tornado is in the range of 20-60 km / h.

When air is drawn in from below, the tornado becomes like a funnel or cone. How more quantity air, the more cone-shaped it will become.

The shape of a tornado can be in the form of a thin rotating tube or a cone. The diameter can reach several hundred meters, and near the water its lower diameter decreases to 30 m, and when it touches the surface of the earth - up to 2-3 km.

The direction of air swirling inside a tornado in the Northern Hemisphere is always counterclockwise, in the Southern Hemisphere it is clockwise.

The color of a tornado can be very varied and depends on the amount of dirt and dust raised from the ground. Most often it varies from off-white, gray to brown or red-brown when red clay is mixed in. Also, its shades can change with lighting or sunset and other atmospheric phenomena. Nighttime tornadoes are often accompanied by flashes of lightning within a thundercloud.

The wind speed inside the tornado can reach 1000 km / h, and trees can move with the same force inside it, metal objects and in general everything that it sucks from the surface of the earth.

Element in the USA

The weather in the United States and the physical and geographical features of their territory contribute to the occurrence a large number tornadoes and hurricanes. In its flat part there are powerful westerly winds that blow over the Rocky Mountains. moving air masses across a vast plain, surrounded on both sides by oceans and mountains, has specific features. The "drought line" runs here, delimiting dry western air and moist eastern winds.

When they enter the plain, they meet with lower warm streams coming from the Gulf of Mexico. As a rule, a tornado is accompanied by heavy rain, wind or hail. The collision of opposite air masses, as a rule, occurs over the central states, and powerful tornadoes form here.

The most common type of tornado in the United States is the whip-shaped tornado (a classic funnel with a smooth column). The most dangerous are compound vortices resembling a tourniquet in shape. Less common fiery tornadoes generated during a fire.

"Tornado Alley"

Tornadoes are a regular occurrence in the United States, but there are areas where they appear most often: the plains between the Appalachians and the Rocky Mountains.

"Tornado Alley" includes areas of the central United States, which includes the states of Texas, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, South Dakota and Minnesota. These regions account for 90% of all tornadoes generated in the Americas.

The term "Tornado Alley" was first used in 1952 in scientific project E. Faubush and R. Miller, in which the weather in the United States was investigated. Then this name was picked up by the press, spreading it around the world. The term "Great Tornado Belt Plains" is also sometimes used.

Almost the entire territory of the Alley is the Great Plains, where there are no mountains, which often act as barriers to moisture discharge. Because of this, the flat area is open to the passage of cold fronts from Canada, as well as warm fronts from Mexico. When they collide, tornadoes are born.

The number of tornadoes depends on weather conditions and time of year. According to meteorologists maximum amount occurs in the spring, the minimum - in the winter.

Science and tornado

Beginning in the 1950s, scientists began officially recording tornadoes in America, as well as conducting numerous studies of the disaster. Protection mechanisms began to be actively introduced, devices were developed that timely signal the emergence and passage of atmospheric vortices, calculating the degree of danger of a tornado.

The protection system includes meteorological satellites and radars; from photographs of passing fronts, scientists predict the likely appearance of tornadoes. In the regions included in Tornado Alley, special calculations for the construction of buildings are taken into account during construction, shelters are being built, professional services have been created that notify residents with signals about the beginning or approach of a natural disaster.

Aftermath of a tornado

Tornadoes in the United States bring terrible destruction and death to cities and towns of the country, because when a tornado passes, all structures and objects inside the funnel are sucked into it.

Due to low pressure inside a tornado, when it comes into contact with a building or any objects, an explosion and great destruction can occur. A curious case has been preserved in history when a tornado passed through a chicken coop, after which all the chickens were plucked. Scientists explained this by an explosion of air sacs located at the base of the bird's feathers, in which the feathers separated from the body.

A tragic example of destruction is the destruction of the entire town of Greensburg (Kansas), which occurred in May 2007: a tornado 2.7 km wide at a speed of 330 km / h destroyed 95% of the buildings (see photo located in the article below) and carried away 11 human lives, although the siren warning passed in 20 minutes. before the tornado approached, and the residents managed to hide.

Statistical data

According to scientists, as of today, 10,000 people have been affected by tornadoes in America.

The most terrible and destructive elements, according to historical data, occurred in the XX-XXI centuries. in these years:

  • 1917 - Mattoon tornado;
  • 1925 - a 1.6 km wide tornado passed through 3 states (Missouri, Illinois, Indiana), killing 690 people, destroying many settlements and farms;
  • 1953 - Texas town destroyed, more than 100 people died;
  • 1998 - powerful tornadoes in Florida.

The record for the number of past tornadoes was 2011 - 1704 tornadoes and 553 deaths. America's average annual material loss is nearly $8 billion.

Tornado-2017

This year, the elements continued their destructive effect in some states.

Major tornadoes in the US in 2017:

  • March - the past tornado left 500 thousand people without electricity. in Michigan.
  • May - 13 people became victims of the elements that swept over the 5 states of the United States, several more were missing.
  • June - A tornado swept through the Pentagon Air Force Base in Nebraska and damaged 10 aircraft intended for emergencies in the country, several trees and one building.
  • August 11 - A tornado in the Texas town of Tulsa left 11,000 residents without electricity, 30 people were injured.
  • During the second half of August in Texas during the passage of Hurricane Harvey, meteorologists announced the passage of more than 70 tornadoes, so the last tornado in the United States can still be considered a frequent occurrence.

tornado hunters

People who have had to deal with the phenomenon of a tornado in their lives are divided into two categories: those who got into it by accident, and hunters who are specifically looking for a meeting with this natural disaster. Tornado hunting in the United States is one of the hobbies of people who love extreme situations today.

Such a movement was created for purely scientific purposes. Indeed, in order to study the nature of a tornado, it was necessary to approach it. Scientists in cars tried to drive closer to the passing tornado, which often ended tragically. However, this could not stop researchers and hunters of such spectacles, because the photo and video obtained from close range from this atmospheric phenomenon, fascinate with their originality and formidable natural beauty.