Understanding the different types of storms

A storm is a severe weather condition that involves strong winds, rain, thunder, lightning, and snow. This force of nature can cause destruction to lives and property. Scientists such as former KCOY weatherman Jim Byrne aim to educate people on these events so that they would know how to prepare and adapt when the need arises. Here’s a guide to the different types of storms:

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Tropical cyclone

This phenomenon is characterized by a series of thunderstorms that produce heavy rainfall in low-pressure areas. Also known as a typhoon, tropical depression, or simply cyclones, these series of storms can become intense depending on low pressure and rapid winds. This storm can take several hours to days before it gains strength to become a hurricane. Moist air, converging winds, and warm surface temperature contribute to its intensity.

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Hailstorm

Professionals such as KCOY weatherman Jim Byrne have witnessed the formation of hailstorms in the U.S. that caused massive damage to properties. Instead of just battling rainfall and strong winds, people have to be extra cautious with hail. These icy stones form due to frozen precipitation caused by rapid currents of air going upwards and downwards during a thunderstorm.

Tornado

The windstorm is caused by a severe thunderstorm that moves from southwest to northeast, causing rotating columns of air that touches the earth’s surface and a cumulonimbus or cumulus cloud. The powerful and high-speed winds can bring destruction as it can push debris and other elements in its path.

Understanding these weather disturbances is crucial in disaster preparedness efforts. Knowing the differences between these storms will help people plan and strategize accordingly.

Jim Byrne is a weatherman serving as a consulting meteorologist for the Weather Channel program “So you think you’d survive.” He served as both the chief meteorologist for KCOY CBS-12 and as a freelance weekend meteorologist at NBC Bay Area. Visit this page for updates.

Countries with the most extreme weather conditions

Weather conditions define countries, and some have more extreme and unusual weather conditions than the next. To give you a rundown, here are examples of meteorologically challenged countries, with their populations experiencing extreme weather shifts and characteristics.

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United States of America. According to a report by National Geographic, hurricane-force winds are present for more than 100 days per year in New Hampshire alone.
India. Mawsynram in India’s Maghalaya state receives the most rainfall each year, according to Guiness World Records. The rain falls during its monsoon season between June and September, and receives 12 meters of rain annually. The hilly village of Cherrapunji comes a close second in terms of rainfall, with over 26 meters of recorded rainfall from August 1860 to July 1861.

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Ethiopia. Ethiopia’s Danakil Depression has the highest average temperatures in the world: 34.4 degrees Celsius below sea level and has little to no rainfall. It is considered one of the hottest places in the world.

Russia. If you can’t handle the cold, then Russia’s Sakha Republic is no place for you. Considered as the coldest permanently-inhabited places, the average temperature goes below minus 50 degrees from October to April. An electronic thermometer was installed as a tourist attraction, which broke almost immediately because it couldn’t handle the cold.

Weatherman Jim Byrne currently works as the meteorological consultant for the Weather Channel program “So you think you’d survive.” Having taken up meteorology and journalism at San Jose State University, he served as the chief meteorologist at KCOY CBS 12 and was a freelance weekend weather reporter for NBC Bay Area. For more articles like this, visit this page. 

The science behind a storm surge

The dominant and pervading notion is that storm surges are like tsunamis. This means that many still think they are a wall of water of sorts. In truth, storm surges are, as the name implies, caused by strong and prolonged winds of a hurricane or typhoon battering the shore. In this sense, it’s better to call them domes of waves that form as the ocean or sea is pushed onto land.

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 These high-water formations essentially translate to the raising of the ocean, coming in with the normal inflow of tides. Hurricanes are devastating enough, but residents of near-ocean areas should be extremely wary not just of the high winds that can uproot trees and houses, but the flow of ocean water inland that may accompany the most severe of such storms. For example, it’s the storm surge and its accompanying water that killed nine out of 10 people when Hurricane Florence hit the U.S.

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Studies done by meteorologists on hurricanes that have formed on U.S. waters between 1963 and 2012 show an alarming statistic: a whopping 49 percent of hurricane-related deaths in the country soil is a result of storm surges. Only 27 percent of the loss of lives was due to rain, eight percent from wind, and three percent from tornadoes, according to the National Hurricane Center.

One of the most destructive storm surges occurred in the Philippines during the landing of Typhoon Haiyan in the southern city of Tacloban in 2013. Not only was Haiyan among the strongest storms ever recorded— it is by far the deadliest to have hit the typhoon-prone nation, killing at least 6,300 people mostly due to drowning brought about by heaps of ocean water poured into the highly unprepared city.

Jim Byrne is a weatherman and a consultant for the program “So You Think You’d Survive” under the Weather Channel. He and former chief meteorologist for KCOY CBS-12. He took up meteorology and journalism at San Jose State University. Visit this Youtube channel for some of Jim’s reports.