Sea+Temperature+and+Depth

Formation of Hurricanes The release of latent heat from tropical oceans plays a vital role in not only the formation of hurricanes. Also the intensity, precipitation and the dissipation of hurricanes is controlled by the ocean’s surface temperatures. The early stages of hurricane formation, particularly those affecting the Gulf of Mexico, occur on the west coast of Africa. Small tropical disturbances pass over the cold Canary current, where the lack of latent heat can stabilise the air and stop any chance of it developing into a tropical storm. Should any of these disturbances make it past the cold ocean current, they will pass over warmer waters. Eastern seaboards of continents tend to have higher average sea temperatures than their western counterparts, due to cold ocean currents.



Huge amounts of heat energy are needed to fuel a full scale hurricane; the main fuel store for this energy is heat from oceans. High amounts of evaporation are needed to produce enough latent heat to give the hurricane the power to continue, without this, the storm would dissipate before becoming a tropical storm, and then a hurricane. The required amount of heat can only be found from an ocean with a deep surface layer (at least 10 meters) and with an average temperature of 27oc. As the Coriolis Effect prevents formation of hurricanes between 0 and 5o latitude, the need for warm oceans stops hurricanes, in most cases, from forming north of 200. The reason for the so called ‘hurricane season’ being in late summer and early autumn, is because that is when tropical waters are at there warmest. **//**

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