"Hello! Here I am incubating off the coast of Africa," it calls to Caribbean islanders one bright and sunny September morning.

"Okay, I'm churning up the middle of the Atlantic. Better take me seriously," it advises several days later.

"Hey, I'm really building up, and I'm heading straight for the Lesser Antilles. Time to stock up!" it advises, ominously, a week after it first forms.

"Look smart, Montserrat! I've just pulverized the island of Guadeloupe, and that didn't slow me down. Here I come. Batten down the hatches!"

Can you imagine a more polite disaster?

In the olden days...
People didn't appreciate the politeness of hurricanes until scientists developed the technology to track them. Until recently, there were no satellite photos and no planes to fly into the hurricane's eye. The Arawak Indians described the hurricane's warning signs to Christopher Columbus, and he listened to them. On at least one occasion, this knowledge saved Columbus' fleet from a watery grave. Lesser Antilles Islanders came to know that hurricanes were likely to strike during August and September. They would watch closely for the signs — a hazy sun, a light drizzle, an upswing of wind, and, most notably, the erratic inland flight of the magnificent frigatebird, known on some islands as the hurricane bird. But telltale signs didn't always appear to tell their story. In 1924, a particularly severe hurricane smashed into the northern half of Montserrat around midnight, when most islanders were sleeping peacefully. A couple of hours later, 36 people were dead and half the population was left homeless. The people of Montserrat have developed a deep respect for the power of hurricanes.

Islander ingenuity creates shelter from the storm.
In the olden days, and even for the poorer people of today, the Caribbean home was flimsy, little more than wood and thatch— mere playthings for a hurricane's powerful winds. The islanders had to learn how to build hurricane shelters. These shelters were triangular structures made of thatch, around ten feet square at the base and eight feet high. A log in the center of the shelter was set deep in the soil, and lianas, woody vines, were used to lash the roof to nearby trees. During the storm, the neighbors crowded into the shelters. As the hurricane's winds whipped about them, they shared strong hot coffee served in coconut shells and ate potato-like vegetables served heaped atop a palm branch. When the winds were especially bad, the men pressed an oxen yoke against the windward wall to support it. Halfway through the storm, after the eye passed and the wind changed directions, the men would brace the opposite wall. When the storm was over, they ventured outside to check the damage.

What's in a name?
The word "hurricane" comes from an Arawak Indian word. The Indians used the word huracán in conversations with early Spanish settlers. Later, the English adapted the pronunciation. Halfway around the world, in the Pacific Ocean, the same phenomenon is known as a "typhoon." The name, typhoon, came from a merging of Chinese and Arabic words. A universal term for this type of storm is cyclone.

For centuries Catholic islanders named hurricanes for the saint on whose day the storm fell. Some hurricanes were renamed after causing horrible damage. One especially violent storm that devastated Montserrat and virtually every other island in the Lesser Antilles lives on in infamy as the Great Hurricane of 1780. In recent decades the names established by the World Meteorological Organization — Betsy, Beulah, Camille — have been universally adopted. These days, names of both men and women are used alternately. You may hear of hurricanes named Arthur, Bertha, Cristobal, Dolly and Edouard

A definition, please?
A hurricane is a storm in which a vast system of clouds, heavy rains, and winds circle around a calm center. It originates in the warm waters of the tropics, then moves slowly forward, spinning at more than 119 km an hour around a core of low atmospheric pressure.

How about a picture?
Picture the worst storm you can imagine — dark, churning clouds; rain falling in sheets so thick you can scarcely see your hands in front of you; winds so strong that they bend young trees parallel to the ground. Now, let your imagination multiply your storm's size many times and set the giant storm swirling around a core of low air pressure in a huge counterclockwise circle hundreds of kilometers in diameter. Because it moves counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere, the winds and waves are generally higher on the northern side of the storm. In the Southern Hemisphere cyclones move clockwise. Now, imagine this massive amount of circling wind and rain and clouds lumbering steadily across the ocean at speeds from 8 to 32 km per hour. If this storm were an immense machine, it would be capable of releasing almost unimaginable amounts of energy. A hurricane-machine would generate enough energy in one day to satisfy the electrical needs of many countries for an entire year!

The central core of the storm, in some cases almost 24 km. in diameter, is called the "eye." In the eye the air becomes calm, clouds part, and patches of blue sky may appear. But the calm of the eye is only a tease. It gives hope to sailors and islanders that the worst is over. In fact, when the eye passes the storm is only half over. Some of the strongest winds begin to howl — from the opposite direction — as soon as the eye passes.

Review Questions

1. What is a hurricane?
2. How are hurricanes unlike other natural disasters?
3. How did people predict and prepare for hurricanes in the days before technology?