Hurricanes

This is a satellite picture of Hurricane Katrina that hit the USA in August 2005, affecting in particular New Orleans. This is a great case study of both physical and human geography and how they can be interlinked in study.







I am going to focus on the physical aspects as one of the points of this sequence of blogs is to develop my knowledge of my' weaker' subject which generally relate to physical elements.

• Typhoon, cyclone or hurricane?

Really it just depends where they occur in the world. The map shows where they can originate and the appropriate name.

How do they develop?

They all start from a basic thunderstorm over the ocean. A source of moist warm air derived from tropical oceans, the temperature generally has to be over 27 centigrade. The winds blowing in different directions converge and cause the air to rise and from storm clouds. The winds are known as low wind sheer and this allows the storm clouds to rise vertically to a high level. The clouds then start to spin having been induced by the earths rotation.

The storm becomes allocated a typhoon or a hurricane if the speeds of the winds exceed 74mph and then they are given a name such as Katrina. In additional they are also given gradings depending on the speeds of the wind, so Katrina for example was a category 5 hurricane with speeds of over 155mph. This the top category.

The damage that is caused by these massive storms can be utterly devastating. Katrina hit land fall at New Orleans and caused massive flooding and devastation of much of the lower lying land occupied by the poorer residents mainly black Afro-Americans. Support from the Bush government was perceived as slow, leading to accusations of a lack of care by the administration for the poorer, black community.

The physical development of typhoons or hurricanes occurs over oceans in the tropical belt, they gather speed and power whilst moving across the sea and dramatically lose power when they hit land. Then the physical geography interacts with the human world. The physical development and the impact on the human geography will make a good case study.

Resources for this could include, weather activities, watching videos of the development and its' consequences. I have found various web sites with fantastic resources including the Met Office, The Geographical Association, Enchanting Teaching to name just 3. These can be differentiated depending on ability of the student.