How Big Do Hurricanes Get?

This video is made possible by Skillshare Start learning anything for free for 2 months At skl.sh/reallifelore16 Nature is still the queen of our planet And one of the greatest displays of her raw power Can be found in the form of hurricanes These huge and often disastrous storms Are a well known fact of life To sailors and coastal communities the world over But these storms are called different ways depending on where you are In the Atlantic and North-Eastern Pacific, they are hurricanes In the North-Western Pacific, they are typhoons While in the South-Pacific and Indian Oceans, they are known as Cyclones Whatever name they go by They are nothing to take lightly But how large and how powerful can these storms actually get? Let's start explaining the Saphir-Simpson scale Which you've probably already seen used It measures hurricanes on a scale between category 1 on the low end And category 5 on the high end To help you visualize what each level of the scale means Let's begin with the smallest known cyclone ever on record: Tropical Storm Marco To be classified as a category 1 hurricane A storm needs to have wind speeds of at least 74 miles per hour (119 kilometers per hour) And so since Marco only had a maximum speed of 65 miles per hour (105 kilometers per hour) It wouldn't even register on the scale The storm was about the same size as Rhode Island And the damage it caused when it impacted Mexico was minimal But obviously, actual hurricanes can get much nastier than this Even on the low end at a category 1 storm Hurricane Nate in 2017 became the costliest natural disaster in the history of Costa Rica Causing 787 million dollars in damage and claiming the lives of 48 people A category 1 storm has wind speeds Ranging between 74 and 95 miles per hour (120-153 kilometers per hour) And Nate's max speed at 90 miles per hour (145 kilometers per hour) easily made it make the mark But the further up the scale we go The more ferocious the wind speeds become At category 2 A hurricane must have wind speeds of between 96 and 110 miles per hour (154-177 kilometers per hour) This is fast enough to damage roofs and windows of homes, uproots of trees and destroy mobile homes Hurricane Arthur is a recent example of this type Which grew to about the size of Montenegro Once we reach category 3 These and all further storms are considered to be major hurricanes To be considered a category 3 A storm needs to have wind speeds between 111 and 129 miles per hour (178-208 kilometers per hour) Even the most well-built homes Or office buildings can suffer minor damage against this While buildings without a solid foundation Will probably be totally destroyed Hurricane Otto in 2016 was a good example of this type Which grew to have a max wind speed of 115 miles per hour (185 kilometers per hour) And became close in size to The Netherlands Hurricanes start getting extremely terrifying when they reach category 4 though The deadliest natural disaster in all of American history Was because of a category 4 hurricane, that struck the city of Galveston in 1900 With wind speeds approaching a 145 miles per hour (233 Kilometers per hour) The hurricane basically destroyed the entire city And left somewhere between 6000 and 12000 people dead But that's nowhere near the deadliest cyclone in world history That unfortunate honor goes to the 1970 Bhola Cyclone That smashed into a place that used to be called East Pakistan And now it's called Bangladesh The storm was about the size of Albania And claimed the lives of over 500000 people! More then all American fatalities during the Second World War combined! Another horrible record set by a category 4 hurricane was by Harvey in 2017 Approaching the size of Hungary, it slammed into the coast of Texas in 2017 And became the costliest hurricane in history! Causing about 125 billion dollars in damage Which is also close to Hungary's total GDP So you can maybe call Harvey a Hungary missile But that missile's record is technically tied with an even more ferocious storm back from 2005, Katrina Which became a monster close in size to Poland With wind speeds of a 175 miles per hour (282 kilometers per hour It also caused a 125 billion dollars in damage And claimed the lives of over a 1000 people when it struck the southern US This is our first category 5 hurricane But there are many more that are significantly bigger As it stands now as of the making of this video Hurricane Florence as not yet made landfall in the Carolina's But it's looking like a true monster approaching the size of France Hurricane Patricia back in 1979 grew to about the size of the entire Iberian peninsula Spain and Portugal combined... And clocked in the highest wind speeds ever measured in a hurricane At a demonically fast 215 miles per hour (346 kilometers per hour) That's fast enough to probably destroy most buildings that would ever come across But there's still a few who have grown even bigger... Well not as ferociously fast Hurricane John was considerably bigger in size nearly the same as Iran! John holds the record for being the longest lasting hurricane at 31 days! And the furthest distance traveled by one 11530 kilometers (7160 miles) Or about 29% of the way around the entire planet! Only a tiny handful of hurricanes have ever been bigger than this But one of them was Sandy Which became the biggest hurricane to ever strike the US It was about half the size of Australia Which looks horrific on a map by the east coast! But with a wind speed of only a 115 miles per hour (185 kilometers per hour) It was actually classified as just a category 3 storm So the damage it caused wasn't as bad as it could've been if it had upgraded But by far the biggest and most terrifying storm on our planet is known to a have ever experienced was Typhoon Tip Back in 1979 Growing in the North-Western Pacific Tip reached a size comparable to the entire county of India! And maintained windspeeds of a 190 miles per hour! (305 kilometers per hour!) Thankfully Tip weakened before it eventually hit Japan But imagine the damage it could've caused if it had hit somewhere at its peak strength... If the Hungary missile caused a 125 billion dollars of damage in Texas Imagine what an INDIA missile could've done in Japan... But worst of all Hurricanes are probably going to get bigger later during the century Because of Global Warming The warmer the ocean water gets... The stronger the hurricane's winds can become Noah estimates that because of Climate Change Hurricanes intensity will increase by 2 to 11% by 2100 Which doesn't sound like a lot Until you remember that 2-11% of wind speeds close to 200 miles per hour Is close to 4-22 additional miles per hour (6-35 kilometers per hour) Which is fast enough over a speed limit to get you a ticket pretty much anywhere Speed is important or at least the illusion of it is Before I started this YouTube channel I created a feature length movie over a summer But I really had no idea what I was doing If you're trying to do something similar, right now Like filming you're own movie, video's for YouTube or any other cinematic project Then there is no other better place to learn what you're doing then over at Skillshare While learning from their classes on aerial videography or, filming scene transitions is incredibly useful Skillshare, of course, has many other interesting classes As well on topics like: Data science programming and animation In fact, Skillshare has over 20000 classes So if there is something you want to learn Then Skillshare has probably a class on it Best of all you can start leaning with Skillshare for free for 2 entire months And support RealLifeLore by signing up today By clicking the link in the description at skl.sh/reallifelore16 *Music*

Channel: RealLifeLore

Views: 2,469,644

Rating: 4.8601284 out of 5

Keywords: real life lore, real life lore maps, real life lore geography, real life maps, world map, world map is wrong, world map with countries, world map real size, map of the world, world geography, geography, geography (field of study), facts you didn’t know, largest hurricane, most powerful hurricane, most powerful typhoon, most powerful cyclone, hurricane florence, hurricane florence size, hurricanes, hurricane size comparison, big hurricane

Id: jfXiqAAb1HE

Length: 8min 3sec (483 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 16 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/blast4past]

What is the background music in this video?

[u/wutisittt]

A comment: it is not too useful to compare the size of the hurricanes to random countries in the world especially because most viewers would not have an idea of the geography/size of those countries. So the comparison becomes somewhat meaningless. Perhaps more useful would be to overlay the hurricane over a world map with the continent (Europe/Asia/America) instead. Otherwise, interesting video!