Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hello, I need to model how warm weather affects the strength of hurricanes, what is the best way to do this other than using graphs and charts.

Hi,

Are you allowed to use video or slide shows in your report? If so then you could pick images and video from Google of hurricanes of various strengths according to the Saffir-Simson hurricane wind scale: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutsshws.php

I don’t know the exact correlation between water temperature and hurricane category, but obviously the warmer the water that the storm passes over, the higher the category. Here’s a video from NOVA ScienceNow that shows the effects of increasing ocean temperature on hurricane severity: http://www.pbslearningmedia.org/resourc ... urricanes/

I hope this helps. If you have more specific questions let us know.

Good luck!

Sybee

Hi bgraham,

If you'd like to demonstrate how various factors affect the formation of hurricanes, you could try setting up beakers of water of different temperatures (steaming water and room temperature water perhaps) and show how the heat transfer into the atmosphere varies based on water temperature. If you cover the top of the beakers with plastic bags and watch the condensation, that might show you the different rates of evaporation.

Also, you could use a blow dryer to simulate winds and show how different strengths affect heat transfer.

Let us know how that goes,

Derek