Weather Break

Click here to listen to episode 273 of Weather Break

Hurricanes don’t make the news very much at this time of the year.  In the ocean basins where hurricanes form that effect the United States, the water temperatures are much too cold in March to support hurricane formation.  However, March is a very active time of year for hurricanes in the Southern Hemisphere, particularly in the southern Indian Ocean, where these storms are called “cyclones”.  Cyclone Ivan was a Category-4 hurricane that hit Madagascar last month, resulting in more then 80 deaths and leaving more than 100,000 people homeless.  On today’s episode of Weather Break, Dr. Jon Schrage examines ways in which “cyclones” in the Indian Ocean are similar to yet different from “hurricanes” in the North Atlantic.

Links:

Here is a fascinating account of the landfall of Cyclone Ivan.

I like this account, too.  (Actually, this whole blog is pretty interesting.)

Here is the track of Cyclone Ivan, courtesy of Unisys Weather’s page about cyclones in the Southern Indian Ocean.