Hurricanes... The Greatest Storms On Earth

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HURRICANE SEASON IS JUNE 1 - NOVEMBER 30 Hurricanes are the only natural disasters with their own names. Hugo, Camille, Agnes, Hazel, Gilbert, Andrew - each evokes its particular image of disaster. Hurricanes are the same in vital ways; like people, each has its own personality.

Names seem appropriate because we come to know hurricanes before they strike, unlike earthquakes, which hit without warning, or tornadoes, which quickly come and go with at best a few minutes warning. Hurricanes are special. You can make a good argument that they are the earth's most awesome storms. Winds in the strongest tornadoes can top 300 m.p.h., while hurricane winds above 150 m.p.h. are rare. But a tornado is much more concentrated than even the smallest hurricane; a mile wide tornado is huge, a 100-mile wide hurricane is small.

Few tornadoes last even an hour and a damage path of 100 miles goes into the record books. Hurricanes easily can last more than a week and can devastate islands around the Caribbean days before slamming into the United States. A large hurricane stirs up more than a million cubic miles of the atmosphere every second. Hurricane winds can kick up 50-foot or higher waves in the open ocean. When a storm hits land, it brings a mound of water. A typical hurricane dumps 6 to 12 inches of rain when it comes ashore - some bring much more water that can rise to a peak height of more than 20 feet near the eye and flood 100 miles of coast with a 10 foot storm surge and have caused some of our worst floods. The following is a checklist of actions you can take before, during and after a hurricane strikes. Check this list each spring to be better prepared for the hurricane season.