Are there hurricanes in the southern hemisphere

Authors: Micheal T. Pillay, Jennifer M. Journal: International Journal of Climatology. Tropical cyclones, also known as hurricanes or typhoons, are massive km in diameter weather systems which cause widespread destruction due to the high windspeeds and heavy rainfall they bring to regions they move over.

Not all tropical cyclones are the same; they form in different tropical and subtropical locations, at different times of the year and reach different intensities calculated from their windspeed and pressure. Ask Question. Asked 7 years ago. Active 2 years, 2 months ago. Viewed 38k times. Improve this question. Richard Richard 2, 2 2 gold badges 15 15 silver badges 35 35 bronze badges. The Arabian Sea does occasionally experience tropical cyclones.

There have been two this year already-Nanauk and Nilofer. The lower land mass in the southern hemisphere does not help as well as compared to the northern hemisphere. I am sure cyclones do form but maybe over the ocean mostly and quickly dissipate. Show 1 more comment. Active Oldest Votes. The reason why these storms generally don't occur in the south Atlantic, according to the Penn State webpage Upper-level Lows as being: There are two primary reasons why tropical cyclones are rare in the south Atlantic basin.

This difference, or shear, rips storms apart before they intensify too much An article The first South Atlantic hurricane: Unprecedented blocking, low shear and climate change Pezza and Simmonds, suggest that the implications of the southern hemisphere hurricane presents evidence to suggest that Catarina could be linked to climate change in the SH circulation, and other possible future South Atlantic hurricanes could be more likely to occur under global warming conditions.

Improve this answer. As the tropical cyclone moves polewards it picks up forward speed and may reach 30 mph or more. An average tropical cyclone can travel about to miles a day, or about 3, miles before it dies out.

In the northern hemisphere, tropical cyclones occur between June and November peaking in September. In the southern hemisphere, the season lasts from November to April but storms remain less common here than in the northern hemisphere. This is why there is no Coriolis force at the equator and why hurricanes rarely form near the equator. The Coriolis force is simply too weak to move the air around low pressure. Air prefers to flow from high to low pressure. Typhoon Vamei which formed near Singapore on December 27, Since tropical cyclone observations started in in the North Atlantic and in the western North Pacific, the previous recorded lowest latitude for a tropical cyclone was 3.

With its circulation center at 1. Naval ships reported maximum sustained surface wind of 87 mph and gust wind of up to mph. Hopefully it is clear why formation of tropical cyclones is rare near the equator, but can a hurricane cross the equator if it has already formed beyond 5 degrees latitude?

Theoretically, the answer is yes but there is a "but. He says,. Yes, because a well developed storm has plenty of spin that would dominate the weak Coriolis force near there. If it crossed the Coriolis force would be working against the initial direction of the spin, but it would be dominated by what we call the relative vorticity of the storm.

Have we seen this happen? Hurricanes can move south and get close to the equator but I cannot find an example of one crossing in the Atlantic or eastern Pacific. In the Indian Ocean some come closer to pulling off this trick.