147 Fun Facts About Hurricanes

Most major Atlantic hurricanes begin as waves of low pressure drifting west off which continent?

Africa's easterly waves seed about 85% of the Atlantic's major hurricanes, yet the dry, dusty Saharan air that sometimes follows them out to sea can stifle a storm before it forms.

Which five-category scale rates hurricanes by sustained wind speed?

Saffir-Simpson scale categories count sustained wind alone, leaving out storm surge and rain flooding, which is why a storm with a low category number can still be a deadly one.

In which ocean basin does a hurricane-strength storm go by the name typhoon?

Northwest Pacific storms of hurricane strength are called typhoons, and location is the only difference: a hurricane that crosses the International Date Line heading west, as Genevieve did in 2014, is relabelled a typhoon on the spot.

As Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, which stadium sheltered thousands of people who had no way out?

The Superdome was the city's shelter of last resort; the storm tore open sections of its roof, and with supplies running short the crowd inside waited days to be evacuated.

The 'divine wind' typhoons of 1274 and 1281 are said to have wrecked the invasion fleets of which grandson of Genghis Khan?

Kublai Khan sent both fleets against Kyushu, and both are said to have been broken up by storms; the defenders credited the gods, and their word for the rescue, kamikaze, was revived centuries later for suicide pilots.

Which Category 5 hurricane sent millions of people fleeing the Houston area less than a month after Katrina?

Rita peaked at 180 mph in the Gulf in September 2005 and set off the largest evacuation in US history; more people died in the gridlocked escape than from the storm itself, which weakened before landfall.

What minimum sustained wind speed makes a tropical cyclone a hurricane?

74 mph is simply 64 knots, the old sailors' threshold for 'hurricane force', the top step of their wind scale; below it a system is only a tropical storm.

Which effect of Earth's rotation makes Northern Hemisphere hurricanes spin counterclockwise?

The Coriolis effect bends inflowing air to the right in the Northern Hemisphere, so storms there turn counterclockwise and southern ones clockwise; it is far too weak, though, to decide which way a sink drains.

On what date does the Atlantic hurricane season officially close?

The Atlantic hurricane season officially closes on 30 November; storms occasionally form outside the window, such as Hurricane Alex, which became a hurricane in January 2016.

Which ring of towering thunderstorms holds a hurricane's strongest winds?

The eyewall carries the highest winds; in the strongest storms a second ring can form outside it and choke it off, which is why intense hurricanes often weaken for a while and can then strengthen again.

Which 2015 hurricane set the tropical-cyclone record for sustained winds at 215 mph?

Hurricane Patricia went from tropical storm to Category 5 in a day, then weakened just as fast and came ashore at 150 mph on a thinly populated stretch of Mexico's Jalisco coast, which kept the death toll low.

The Dvorak technique lets forecasters estimate a hurricane's strength using only what?

Satellite images are matched against a set of standard cloud patterns, a method Vernon Dvorak worked out in the early 1970s; it is still how forecasters gauge storms that no aircraft can reach.

When Hurricane Genevieve crossed the International Dateline westward in 2014, what did it become?

Genevieve became Typhoon Genevieve on crossing 180° into the Western Pacific basin, handed from US forecasters in Honolulu to that basin's own warning centre; the storm itself did not change, only its label.

Clement Wragge, the Queensland forecaster who first gave storms personal names, ended up naming cyclones after whom?

Politicians he disliked got the honour, which let him report that one was 'causing great distress'; once he retired, the practice lapsed for decades.

Which of these letters is never used to start an Atlantic hurricane name?

Q is skipped, like U, X, Y and Z, so each yearly list holds only 21 names, from an A name to a W name such as Wanda or Wendy; a 22nd storm has to draw on a separate supplemental list.

From 1953 to 1978, Atlantic hurricanes were named only after whom?

Women alone lent their names until 1979, when men's names joined the Atlantic lists after a decade of pressure from the Florida feminist Roxcy Bolton; Bob was the first man's name used.

In which country did Cyclone Idai make landfall in March 2019?

Mozambique's port city of Beira took the landfall on 15 March 2019, and the floods that followed there and in Zimbabwe and Malawi killed well over 1,000 people, one of the worst weather disasters the southern hemisphere has known.

Cyclone Hyacinthe dropped a record 6,083 mm of rain over 15 days in January 1980 on which island?

Réunion's steep volcanic slopes force moist air upward and wring it dry, and Hyacinthe looped past the island three times; the 6,083 mm caught at Commerson crater is the most rain ever measured from one tropical cyclone.

The deadliest tropical cyclone on record killed 300,000-plus in 1970 in which present-day country?

Bangladesh, then East Pakistan, lost an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 people when the Bhola cyclone's surge swept the Ganges delta on 12-13 November 1970; the slow relief response fed the 1971 independence war.

Hagibis in October 2019 became the costliest typhoon on record for which country?

Hagibis hit Honshu on 12 October 2019 with record rainfall, causing about $17 billion in damage, Japan's costliest typhoon, and forced the cancellation of three Rugby World Cup pool matches.

Hurricane Harvey set the US rainfall record of 60.58 inches in 2017 in which state?

Texas took Harvey's 60.58 inches at Nederland, near Port Arthur, the most rain measured from one tropical cyclone in US history, as the storm stalled over the Houston area for days in August 2017.

In March 2004, Hurricane Catarina, the first hurricane on record in the South Atlantic, struck which country?

Brazil had never recorded a hurricane, and its government forecasters at first denied that this one was a hurricane at all; local meteorologists named it for Santa Catarina, the state where it came ashore on 28 March 2004.

Vince in 2005 was the first tropical cyclone since 1842 known to make landfall in which European country?

Spain was reached near Huelva on 11 October 2005 by a fading Vince, which had become a hurricane near Madeira over water forecasters considered too cool for one; the only earlier case on record is a hurricane of 1842.

Which 2004 hurricane struck Gulf Shores, Alabama, then spawned about 120 tornadoes from Florida to Pennsylvania?

Ivan's rainbands spun up tornadoes for three days as it moved inland; what was left of it then drifted back over the Atlantic, looped south across Florida and was reborn in the Gulf as a tropical storm.

In a Northern Hemisphere hurricane, which side of the storm, relative to its direction of travel, has the strongest winds?

The right side adds the storm's forward speed to its spinning winds while the left subtracts it, so a 90 mph hurricane moving at 10 mph blows 100 mph on one flank and 80 on the other; forecasters call the rough flank the dirty side.

What do forecasters call a rise of at least 35 mph in a hurricane's winds within 24 hours?

Rapid intensification is notoriously hard to forecast and can take a storm from minor to major in a single day; most of the world's major storms go through it at least once.

Katrina was the deadliest US hurricane since which 1928 disaster?

The Okeechobee storm pushed the lake over its low dike and drowned well over a thousand people on the farms below; most of Katrina's dead were likewise killed by floodwater, after New Orleans' federally built levees failed.

Katrina jumped from Category 3 to 5 in nine hours over the warm waters of which Gulf of Mexico feature?

The Loop Current carries deep warm Caribbean water into the Gulf, and Katrina crossed it to peak at 175 mph with a 902 mbar central pressure on 28 August 2005.

Along with Andrew, Michael and the 1935 Labor Day storm, which hurricane hit the continental US at Category 5?

Camille came ashore in August 1969 with such force that no wind instrument near the landfall survived, so its 175 mph landfall wind is an estimate, settled only by a reanalysis 45 years later.

Andrew was Florida's costliest hurricane for 25 years until which 2017 storm surpassed it?

Irma raked the whole Florida peninsula in September 2017 and ran up about $50 billion in damage there, passing Andrew's 1992 bill; Andrew had stripped Homestead houses to their concrete slabs.

Which 2005 hurricane's central pressure fell to 882 millibars, the lowest ever measured in the Atlantic?

Wilma's pressure dropped 97 millibars in 24 hours on 19 October 2005, a record plunge, while its eye shrank to only a few miles across, among the smallest ever seen in a hurricane.

Which 1988 hurricane held the Atlantic low-pressure record for 17 years after devastating Jamaica?

Gilbert's 888 millibars stood from 1988 until 2005; its eye ran the whole length of Jamaica, the island's first direct hurricane hit since 1951, and the dancehall single 'Wild Gilbert' was on sale within days.

Hurricane Sandy came ashore near Brigantine in which state in October 2012?

New Jersey took Sandy near Brigantine, just northeast of Atlantic City; because the storm was forecast to lose its tropical character before landfall, the hurricane centre issued no tropical watches or warnings for the coast it struck.

The deadliest natural disaster in US history was a 1900 hurricane that struck which Texas city?

Galveston lost an estimated 8,000 people on 8 September 1900; the city then raised its grade by up to 17 feet and built a seawall that eventually ran about 10 miles.

A US Army pilot first flew into a hurricane on a bet during which war?

World War II had British pilots training at an American airfield; when they joked that its trainer planes were too flimsy to face a storm, instructor Joe Duckworth bet he could fly his AT-6 into the hurricane, and did.

The 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron flies which aircraft directly into hurricanes?

The 53rd, an Air Force Reserve unit known as the Hurricane Hunters, flies the Lockheed WC-130J Super Hercules from Keesler Air Force Base, crossing the centre of a storm several times on each mission.

The 1971 hurricane category scale grew out of a UN housing study by a man in which profession?

A civil engineer drew up the first version: studying low-cost housing in hurricane-prone areas for the United Nations, he found no simple scale for the damage a storm would do, so he wrote one and handed it to the hurricane centre.

The climatological peak of the Atlantic hurricane season falls on which date?

Atlantic activity peaks around September 10, when sea-surface temperatures are near their annual high and wind shear over the tropical Atlantic is at its weakest.

Which US agency flies the hurricane hunter planes nicknamed Kermit and Miss Piggy?

NOAA's two four-engine turboprops fly straight through the core of a storm and carry their Muppet names with the blessing of Jim Henson's company; the agency's high-altitude jet, which circles storms instead, is Gonzo.

A 2013 study said which moon's hydrocarbon polar seas might power tropical cyclones?

Titan is the only other world in the Solar System with large bodies of surface liquid, in a methane cycle that mimics Earth's water cycle.

Seen from space, extratropical cyclones have a characteristic cloud pattern shaped like what?

Extratropical cyclones show a comma-shaped cloud pattern, the tail tracing the cold front; they draw energy from temperature contrasts between air masses rather than from warm water.

What does the Fujiwhara effect describe?

The Fujiwhara effect is two cyclones interacting with each other, circling a common point once they come within about 1,400 km; when one is much larger it dominates, and the smaller storm is swung around it.

The 'brown ocean effect' allows a tropical cyclone to do what?

The brown ocean effect lets a cyclone keep strength after landfall over wet soil, as evaporation from saturated ground supplies latent heat; Tropical Storm Erin strengthened over Oklahoma this way in 2007.

Which hurricane alert means conditions are expected rather than only possible?

A warning means hurricane-force winds are expected and goes out 36 hours before the first gales are due; a watch means only that they are possible and comes 48 hours ahead, because preparing gets difficult once the gales arrive.

In 2021 the WMO suggested the NHC assess moving the Atlantic season's start to which date?

Named storms before June 1 in six straight seasons (2015-2020) prompted the review, and from 2021 the NHC moved its routine Tropical Weather Outlooks to a May 15 start while keeping June 1 as the opening date.

Which is the only month in which every tropical cyclone basin in the world is in season?

November is the overlap month: the Southern Hemisphere's seasons have opened while the northern ones have not yet closed; worldwide, May is the quietest month for tropical cyclones.

The HURDAT storm database was first assembled in the 1960s to support which effort?

HURDAT was built in the 1960s for the Apollo space program, which wanted to know how tropical cyclones could affect launches from Kennedy Space Center; it now tracks Atlantic storms back to 1851.

In hurricane forecasting, 'landfall' is the moment when which part of the storm crosses the coast?

The centre of the eye has to cross the shoreline, so a storm's worst winds can rake a coast for hours without an official landfall, and the strongest winds of one that does make landfall can stay out at sea.

Hurricane Mitch killed more than 9,000 people in Central America in 1998, mostly through what?

Flooding rain did the damage: Mitch crawled over Central America for days, and the worst single blow came when the soaked flank of Casita volcano gave way and buried the villages below.

Mitch was retired after 1998; which name took its slot on the Atlantic list in 2004?

Matthew took Mitch's place in 2004, then was itself retired after its deadly 2016 run through the Caribbean and gave way to Martin on the 2022 list.

Katrina's main Gulf Coast landfall on 29 August 2005 came near which Louisiana community?

Katrina crossed the coast at Buras-Triumph in Plaquemines Parish at 6:10 am CDT as a Category 3 with 125 mph winds, down from its Category 5 peak a day earlier, then made a final landfall near the mouth of the Pearl River.

Which 2017 hurricane wrecked Puerto Rico's power grid, causing the worst blackout in US history?

Maria came ashore near Yabucoa on 20 September 2017 with 155 mph winds and left all 3.4 million islanders without electricity, some of them for months; a later study put the deaths at 2,975.

Which 2022 hurricane struck southwest Florida near Fort Myers and became the costliest in the state's history?

Ian came ashore on the barrier island of Cayo Costa on 28 September 2022 with 150 mph winds; its surge, 10 to 15 feet deep, knocked out the causeways to Sanibel and Pine Island and cut both off for days.

Dorian sat almost motionless for about a day in September 2019 over which island?

Dorian sat over Grand Bahama from 2 September 2019 with no steering currents, battering Freeport with Category 5 and then Category 4 winds for more than 24 hours.

Hugo came ashore in September 1989 on Sullivan's Island, just north of which South Carolina city?

Charleston was spared the worst: Hugo's Category 4 core came ashore just up the coast around midnight on 22 September 1989, and the highest surge, about 20 feet, struck farther north around Bulls Bay.

A 24.6-foot storm tide in 1969, a US record until Katrina, was measured at Pass Christian in which state?

Mississippi's coast took the 1969 hurricane head-on, and its high-water mark stood as the US record for 36 years; days later the same storm's rain set off flash floods in the mountains of Virginia that killed more than 100 people.

The Great Hurricane of 1780, the Western Hemisphere's deadliest, first hit which island?

Barbados took the first blow on 10 October 1780; the storm then raked Saint Lucia, Martinique and Sint Eustatius, killing some 22,000 people and wrecking British and French fleets during the American Revolutionary War.

Most of Hurricane Hazel's Canadian deaths in 1954 occurred in and around which city?

Toronto was still being hit by a Category 1-strength storm after 1,100 km over land; 800 soldiers were called in for the cleanup.

Iniki, Hawaii's strongest hurricane of the 20th century, struck which island in September 1992?

Iniki crossed Kauai on 11 September 1992 as a Category 4, the strongest hurricane on record to strike Hawaii; only a fifth of the island's power was back after four weeks, and some districts waited three to four months.

Which filmmaker rode out Iniki in a Hawaii hotel with 130 cast and crew in 1992?

Steven Spielberg was on the last day of location filming for Jurassic Park; he sent a small crew out to film the hurricane, and the shots appear in the movie when a tropical storm strikes the island park.

Helene's 140 mph landfall in September 2024 came in Florida's Big Bend, near which city?

Helene crossed the coast about 10 miles from Perry late on 26 September 2024, the strongest hurricane on record in Florida's Big Bend; yet more than 100 of its dead were hundreds of miles inland, in North Carolina's mountain floods.

Helene's landslides collapsed sections of I-26 and I-40 around which North Carolina city?

Asheville was largely cut off in late September 2024 when landslides collapsed or washed away sections of I-26 and I-40, with power and phone service down as well; the city had just set a two-day rainfall record of nearly 10 inches.

Hurricane Milton came ashore in October 2024 near which key on Florida's Gulf coast?

Siesta Key's landfall, south of Tampa, spared the bay a worst-case surge; water was actually pushed out in a reverse surge.

Before Beryl in 2024, which 2005 storm was the only other Atlantic Category 5 in July?

Emily went on to strike Mexico's Yucatán resort coast as a Category 4, tearing roofs off hotels; tens of thousands of tourists had been moved out of the beach resorts around Cancún before it hit.

Beryl's first landfall, on 1 July 2024, was on Carriacou, an island of which country?

Carriacou is part of Grenada, and Beryl's Category 4 landfall on 1 July 2024 damaged or destroyed nearly every building there; Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell said the island was flattened in half an hour.

Otis became the first Pacific hurricane to land at Category 5 in 2023, near which city?

Otis struck Acapulco on 25 October 2023 after exploding from tropical storm to Category 5 in well under a day, when forecasts had called for a weak storm staying offshore; it became Mexico's costliest tropical cyclone.

Ida's final landfall in August 2021, with 150 mph winds, came near which Louisiana town?

Ida came ashore at Port Fourchon and knocked out all eight transmission lines feeding New Orleans, toppling one tower into the river, so the entire city lost power.

Which 1999 hurricane was nicknamed 'Wrong Way' for tracking west to east in the Caribbean?

Lenny earned the nickname by crossing the Caribbean from west to east in November 1999, the reverse of the usual path, so its waves pounded the west-facing harbours and resort beaches that hurricanes normally leave sheltered.

The cargo ship El Faro and its 33 crew were lost in the Bahamas in 2015 to which storm?

Joaquin sank El Faro on 1 October 2015 after the ship, bound from Jacksonville to San Juan, steamed into the heart of the hurricane; all 33 crew were lost.

Ex-hurricane Ophelia made landfall in which country on 16 October 2017?

Ophelia, by then post-tropical, came ashore in Ireland on 16 October 2017 with a 119 mph gust at Fastnet Rock, the highest wind ever recorded in the country; forecasters had raised their top alert, Status Red, two days ahead.

Hurricane Michael's Category 5 landfall in October 2018 came near which Florida Panhandle town?

Mexico Beach took Michael's 160 mph winds on 10 October 2018 and lost block after block of homes; the storm was announced at the time as a strong Category 4 and raised to Category 5 only after a post-storm review.

Which late-2020 hurricane hit Central America just two weeks after Hurricane Eta?

Iota came ashore as a Category 4 only about 15 miles from where Eta had struck two weeks earlier; both names were then retired, and the Greek alphabet was dropped from hurricane naming.

Agnes in 1972 sent which river over its banks, wrecking the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton area?

The Susquehanna set record crests along much of its length; Agnes, barely a hurricane at its Florida landfall, did nearly all its damage with rain, and was at the time the costliest hurricane the United States had seen.

Hattie's 1961 wrecking of Belize City led the government to build which new capital?

Belmopan, built about 50 miles inland on higher ground and occupied from 1970, replaced Belize City as capital after Hattie's surge swamped the sea-level city in October 1961.

Flora in 1963 drifted for four days over which island, becoming its wettest known cyclone?

Flora looped over eastern Cuba for four days in October 1963, dropping more than 100 inches of rain at Santiago de Cuba, the most ever measured on the island from one storm; about 1,750 Cubans died in the floods.

Which 1980 hurricane was the first in the Atlantic known to reach sustained winds of 190 mph?

Allen hit 190 mph in August 1980, a mark no other Atlantic storm matched for 45 years, and climbed to Category 5 on three separate occasions as it crossed the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico.

Betsy in 1965 was the first Atlantic tropical cyclone to cause at least how much damage?

Betsy ran up about $1.4 billion in 1965 damage, earning the nickname 'Billion-Dollar Betsy'; its surge pushed into Lake Pontchartrain, breached New Orleans levees and flooded the Lower Ninth Ward.

Juan in 2003 was called the worst storm since 1893 for which Canadian city?

Juan struck Halifax on 29 September 2003 as a Category 2, killing eight and stripping Point Pleasant Park of most of its trees; a hurricane-strength blizzard that hit the same city the next February was nicknamed White Juan.

Fifi in 1974 killed more than 8,000 people, mostly in which country?

Honduras bore most of Fifi's toll in September 1974, when days of rain collapsed hillsides and swept away Choloma and other towns; the remnants crossed into the Pacific and became Hurricane Orlene.

Isabel's 2003 floodwaters carved a new inlet through which part of the Outer Banks?

Isabel's surge cut 'Isabel Inlet' through Hatteras Island between Frisco and Hatteras village on 18 September 2003, isolating the village until the breach was filled; the Category 2 landfall damaged thousands of homes.

Charley's 150 mph winds in 2004 devastated which city on Florida's Charlotte Harbor?

Punta Gorda took Charley's 150 mph core on 13 August 2004 after the compact storm crossed Charlotte Harbor; it then tore up the Peace River corridor through Port Charlotte, Arcadia and Wauchula.

A stretch of Florida Panhandle beach is named for which 1995 hurricane that hit it?

Opal Beach in the Gulf Islands National Seashore, between Pensacola Beach and Navarre Beach, takes its name from Opal, which came ashore there on 4 October 1995 after abruptly weakening from Category 4 to 3.

Hurricane Bob in 1991 came ashore twice, the second time at Newport, in which New England state?

Rhode Island got Bob as a Category 2 with 100 mph winds, first on Block Island and then at Newport; the storm cut power to 2.1 million people and sent President George H. W. Bush inland by motorcade from his holiday home in Maine.

Which 1960 hurricane brought hurricane-force winds to Florida, the Mid-Atlantic and New England?

Donna crossed the Florida Keys, then North Carolina and Long Island, in September 1960; at Sag Harbor John Steinbeck fought to save his boat from it, the scene that opens Travels with Charley.

Audrey in 1957 killed about 400 people in the United States, most of them in which Louisiana parish?

Cameron Parish took Audrey's 12-foot surge on 27 June 1957; the storm sped up and strengthened in its last hours, reaching the coast sooner than residents expected, and most of the dead drowned.

The 1935 Labor Day hurricane, the most intense ever to strike the United States, came ashore near which Florida Key?

Long Key lay in the path of the eye on 2 September 1935, when the pressure fell to 892 mb; the surge derailed the train sent to rescue war veterans building the Overseas Highway, and more than 400 people died.

Whose 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God depicts the 1928 Florida hurricane?

Zora Neale Hurston set the novel's climax in the storm, when wind drove a great inland lake over its low dike and drowned the farm country below; her heroine Janie escapes the flood, but it costs her husband Tea Cake his life.

Which then-obscure newsman reported live from a weather bureau during Hurricane Carla in 1961?

Dan Rather, then a local reporter, had a forecaster trace the Gulf of Mexico on clear plastic and held it over the radar screen, showing viewers a storm that filled the Gulf; CBS hired him soon after.

Typhoon Cobra sank three US destroyers in December 1944 and is still known by the name of which admiral?

William Halsey kept his Third Fleet on station trying to refuel as the storm closed in, working from faulty weather reports; 790 sailors died, and the storm has been called Halsey's Typhoon ever since.

Hurricane Fabian made a direct hit in 2003 on which Atlantic island, its strongest storm since 1963?

Bermuda took winds over 120 mph on 5 September 2003, its strongest hurricane since Arlene in 1963; the surge swept two cars off a causeway, killing four people, the island's first hurricane deaths of the satellite era.

What label do US forecasters give a typhoon whose sustained winds reach 150 mph?

Super typhoon is the American forecasters' term for a typhoon of 150 mph or more; the region's official centre grades by its own scale, so the same storm can be a super typhoon to one and a 'violent typhoon' to the other.

Felix's Category 5 landfall in September 2007 hit the Mosquito Coast of which country?

Felix came ashore on Nicaragua's Mosquito Coast on 4 September 2007 with 160 mph winds, hours after levelling the Miskito Cays offshore; at least 130 people died in the country, and the name was retired.

What nickname did the 1938 New England hurricane earn for its speed up the coast?

Long Island Express: forecasters expected the storm to curve out to sea, but it raced north instead and struck Long Island and Connecticut on 21 September 1938, catching the Weather Bureau and the coast by surprise.

Fiona made landfall in which province in September 2022 with a Canadian-record 931 mb pressure?

Nova Scotia took Fiona on 24 September 2022 as a post-tropical storm still at 931 mb, the lowest pressure ever measured in Canada; its surge set record water levels as far away as New Brunswick and Newfoundland.

Hilary in 2023 prompted the NHC's first-ever tropical storm warning for which US region?

Southern California got the hurricane centre's first tropical storm warning, from the Mexican border to north of Los Angeles; Hilary's rain gave Death Valley more than a year's average in one day and shut the park for two months.

Hurricane Jeanne's floods in September 2004 killed 3,006 people in which Caribbean country?

Haiti never took a direct hit: Jeanne's centre passed to the north, but its rain ran off deforested hills and drowned much of the city of Gonaïves, where most of the dead were found.

Which 2025 hurricane matched Dorian and the 1935 Labor Day storm with a 185 mph landfall?

Melissa struck Jamaica's southwest coast on 28 October 2025 with 185 mph winds, the first Category 5 landfall recorded in Jamaica, matching Dorian's 2019 Bahamas landfall and the 1935 Labor Day hurricane's 185 mph.

NOAA's two WP-3D Orion hurricane hunter planes carry the nicknames of which pair of Muppets?

Kermit and Miss Piggy also appear in the two planes' logos, a nod to Jim Henson's characters. The four-engine turboprops fly straight through storms to measure them from the inside.

Which word names the storms said to have wrecked Kublai Khan's two invasion fleets off Japan?

Kamikaze means 'divine wind', the name given to the storms said to have destroyed Mongol fleets in 1274 and 1281. It was revived in the 1940s for suicide pilots meant to sweep away another invader.

Which 24-hour restaurant chain lends its name to an informal index FEMA uses to gauge a hurricane's damage?

Waffle House stays open through almost anything, so the index's rare red level, meaning a restaurant has closed, tells officials an area has been hit hard.

Which Founding Father's vivid letter about a 1772 hurricane on St. Croix moved local leaders to fund his education?

Alexander Hamilton was a teenage clerk when he wrote it to his father. A minister had it printed in the island newspaper, and impressed readers raised a fund that sent him to North America.

Which explorer warned Santo Domingo's governor in 1502 that a hurricane was coming, only to be refused shelter?

Christopher Columbus was turned away from the port on his fourth voyage. The hurricane then drove ships ashore and sank the one carrying his rival Francisco de Bobadilla.

Katrina's floodwaters broke through levees in August 2005 and left about 80 percent of which city underwater?

New Orleans flooded when canal levees such as the one on 17th Street gave way. Pumping the water back out into Lake Pontchartrain took 43 days.

Which planet has a hurricane-like storm that astronomers have watched continuously since 1878?

Jupiter's Great Red Spot measured about 1.3 times as wide as Earth in 2017, and it is shrinking. Around 1900 the spinning oval stretched roughly three times our planet's diameter.

From 1953 until 1979, what did US forecasters use exclusively to label Atlantic hurricanes?

Women's first names replaced a military phonetic alphabet in 1953. After years of protests, men's names joined the Atlantic lists in 1979.

When the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season ran out of names, forecasters turned to the letters of which alphabet?

Greek letters filled in again in 2020, but the public found them confusing. The backup was scrapped in 2021 in favour of a spare list of ordinary names.

About 85 percent of intense Atlantic hurricanes grow from tropical waves that drift off the coast of which region?

West Africa launches these ripples of low pressure. Some begin as far east as Sudan and cross the whole continent before they reach the ocean.

Which effect of Earth's rotation, named for a French scientist, sets hurricanes spinning?

Coriolis worked out the maths in 1835 while studying water wheels, not weather. The same sideways deflection makes storms turn opposite ways in the two hemispheres.

Hurricanes almost never form within about 500 km of which line, where Earth's spin cannot twist the winds?

The Equator is where Earth's rotation gives moving air no sideways push, so clusters of thunderstorms cannot start to turn. A storm needs to sit about 4.5 degrees of latitude away.

Which stage of the water cycle releases the heat that powers a hurricane's thunderstorms?

Condensation of rising vapour gives off stored heat, which warms the air and drives it higher. A hurricane that loses this heat engine weakens, or turns into an ordinary mid-latitude low.

Long-lived Atlantic hurricanes born in the far eastern ocean take their name from which island group?

Cape Verde hurricanes have a wide stretch of open sea to grow over before meeting land, so they are often the largest and fiercest of a season. An average year brings about two.

Layers of hot, dusty air blown out to sea from which desert can choke off young Atlantic hurricanes?

The Sahara sheds an estimated 60 to 200 million tons of dust westward every year. The dry layer that carries it evaporates cloud droplets and has been seen to stifle developing storms.

Which Pacific climate pattern tends to quiet the Atlantic hurricane season by strengthening wind shear there?

El Niño brings stronger high-level westerlies over the Atlantic that tear at developing storms, and the air there can turn drier too. The activity tends to shift to the Pacific instead.

Which belt of prevailing airflow steers most young Atlantic hurricanes westward across the tropics?

Trade winds blow from east to west along the tropical side of the subtropical ridge, a persistent belt of high pressure, and they carry the storms along with them.

Which warm ocean current fed Hurricane Sandy as it tracked north in 2012?

The Gulf Stream runs up the US East Coast. Its warm water and the sharp temperature contrast along its edge often strengthen storms of every kind, tropical or not.

Which weather instrument's reading falls steeply as a hurricane closes in, giving sailors an early warning?

Barometer readings track air pressure, which is lowest at a hurricane's centre. In 1660 Otto von Guericke saw an unusually low reading and predicted a storm that arrived the next day.

Which curved arms of thunderstorms, spiralling toward a hurricane's centre, often spawn tornadoes as it comes ashore?

Rainbands are most likely to spawn twisters in the storm's right-front quadrant. Forecasters also judge a storm's strength from satellite pictures of how tightly the bands curve.

The US National Hurricane Center issues its Atlantic forecasts from a university campus in which Florida city?

Miami took over the hurricane warning office from Jacksonville during World War II. The centre now shares a building with the local weather service at Florida International University.

The 'cone of uncertainty' on a National Hurricane Center forecast map shows the likely path of what?

The storm's centre is all the cone tracks, so dangerous weather often reaches well outside it. Even the centre is expected to stay within the cone only about 60 to 70 percent of the time.

Hurricane Sandy flooded subway tunnels and closed the stock exchange for two days in which city in October 2012?

New York had not lost two straight days of trading to the weather since 1888. Sandy's seawater poured into streets and tunnels and cut power in and around the city.

In 2019's 'Sharpiegate', a Hurricane Dorian forecast map was altered with a marker pen to include which state?

Alabama had been named in a presidential tweet as lying in Dorian's path, and within about 20 minutes the Birmingham weather office said it would see no impacts. The altered map appeared three days later.

The Atlantic hurricane season, originally defined as starting two weeks later, now officially opens on which date?

June 1 replaced the original start of June 15, the date when routine monitoring of the tropics used to begin. The closing date has moved as well: it was once October 31.

On which wind scale, devised by a Royal Navy officer in 1805, is the top level, force 12, labelled 'hurricane'?

Beaufort's original scale gave no wind speeds at all. Each step described the effect on a frigate's sails, and force 12 was a wind that no canvas could withstand.

Hurricane Andrew all but flattened which South Florida city and its air base when it came ashore in August 1992?

Homestead lost 99 percent of its mobile homes, and most of the 2,000 buildings on its Air Force base were wrecked. Many houses nearby were stripped to their concrete foundations.

Hurricane Wilma wrecked 110 hotels and filled shelters with stranded tourists in which Mexican resort city in 2005?

Cancún saw waves of 16 to 26 feet push water up to the third storey of some buildings. Across the region about 45,000 people sat out the storm in emergency shelters.

Cyclone Tracy destroyed more than 70 percent of the buildings in which Australian city on Christmas Day 1974?

Darwin had to be largely emptied afterwards. More than 30,000 of its 47,000 residents were evacuated by road and air, and many of them never returned.

Which salt-tolerant coastal trees shield tropical shorelines from a hurricane's waves and flooding?

Mangroves blunt high-energy waves and limit erosion during cyclones and tsunamis alike. Studies have put a measurable economic value on the protection they give coastal communities.

Which domed NFL stadium became a 'shelter of last resort' for thousands when Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005?

The Superdome had its waterproof roof covering peeled away by the wind. Photographs of the bare concrete underneath became one of Katrina's defining images.

Which 2000 film dramatizes the 1991 nor'easter that absorbed Hurricane Grace and sank the fishing boat Andrea Gail?

The Perfect Storm takes its title from Sebastian Junger's book. He coined the phrase after a Boston forecaster described the weather set-up as perfect for producing such a monster.

Which director made the 2006 HBO documentary When the Levees Broke about Hurricane Katrina's aftermath?

Spike Lee subtitled the film A Requiem in Four Acts. It runs for more than four hours and had its premiere in the city it portrays, days before it reached television.

Which novelist rode out the 1935 Labor Day hurricane in Key West, then blamed officials in print for veterans' deaths?

Ernest Hemingway took a boat to the wrecked work camps where veterans had been building the Overseas Highway. He then wrote a scathing article about it for The New Masses.

Which Asian country sees about twenty tropical cyclones a year enter its waters and gives each its own local name?

The Philippines names every storm that enters its area of responsibility, so one system can carry two names. The deadly storm the world called Haiyan in 2013 was Yolanda at home.

Cyclone Nargis pushed the sea 40 km up the Irrawaddy Delta in May 2008, devastating which country?

Myanmar lost at least 138,000 people in the worst natural disaster in its recorded history. A feared follow-on toll from disease never came.

Which city hosts the US hurricane centre that watches the central Pacific between 140°W and the Date Line?

Honolulu's centre sits on the University of Hawaii campus beside the local forecast office, which only activates it when a storm forms in or wanders into its patch of ocean.

Cyclone Olivia's 408 km/h gust on an Australian island in 1996 broke a wind record set in 1934 on which US peak?

Mount Washington in New Hampshire clocked 231 mph in April 1934 and held the world record for a non-tornado gust for 62 years, until an unstaffed gauge on Barrow Island beat it.

Project Stormfury, a US experiment that ran from 1962 to 1983, tried to weaken hurricanes by seeding them with what?

Silver iodide was meant to freeze supercooled water and disrupt a storm's inner structure. It turned out that most hurricanes hold too little of that water for seeding to work.

Which landlocked US state is home to the university team that has forecast Atlantic hurricane seasons since 1984?

Colorado State University's William Gray built the first forecast on statistical links between hurricanes and far-off signals such as Caribbean air pressure. His student Philip Klotzbach later took over.

Which instrument do hurricane hunter crews send through a storm to measure its winds and pressure?

Dropsonde tubes fall from the aircraft under a small parachute, taking readings all the way down to the sea. Crews release between 1,000 and 5,000 of them in a typical hurricane season.

Hurricane Maria reached Category 5 strength just before its first landfall in 2017 on which Caribbean island nation?

Dominica was hit before Maria went on to Puerto Rico, and the storm all but stripped the island of its lush vegetation. It was the deadliest hurricane there since 1834.

Cyclone Winston, the most intense storm on record in the Southern Hemisphere, hit which Pacific nation in 2016?

Fiji imposed a nationwide curfew as Winston came ashore on Viti Levu. The storm damaged or destroyed 40,000 homes and affected roughly 40 percent of the population.

Which 2023 cyclone crossed the whole southern Indian Ocean and became the longest-lasting on record, at 36 days?

Freddy formed south of Indonesia in early February and was still going in March. It broke a record that Hurricane John had held since 1994.

Which NASA craft, launched in April 1960, was the first operational weather satellite to show storms from orbit?

TIROS-1 gave the first long-term view of a developing storm from space, following one large system for four days. Whole cloud patterns could be seen at a glance for the first time.

Which method, named for the forecaster who began it in the late 1960s, rates a hurricane from satellite images alone?

Dvorak matched the cloud patterns in satellite pictures to wind speeds. In most ocean basins his method is still the main way to estimate a storm's maximum winds.

A hurricane in September 1559 sank most of Tristán de Luna's fleet weeks after he founded a colony at which Florida bay?

Pensacola's settlers lost most of their ships and cargo before they could unload, and the colony was given up two years later. Europeans did not settle the area again until 1698.

Which BBC weatherman told viewers not to worry about a rumoured hurricane hours before Britain's Great Storm of 1987?

Michael Fish later said he had been talking about a hurricane near Florida, and he did warn of high winds. The storm that arrived was far stronger than forecast, though technically not a hurricane.

Which stretch of Florida's Atlantic shore is named for a Spanish fleet wrecked there in a 1715 hurricane?

Treasure Coast residents took up the name to set themselves apart from the Gold Coast to the south, after salvagers recovered riches from the 1715 wrecks near Sebastian Inlet.

Which 1948 Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall film traps a gangster's hostages in a hotel as a hurricane closes in?

Key Largo borrowed its storm. The exterior hurricane shots were stock footage taken from Night Unto Night, a Ronald Reagan melodrama.