The features and structure of a tropical storm

Question 1

What shapes are tropical storms?

Answer 1

They are in a circular shape, hundreds of kilometres wide and usually last for 1 or 2 weeks.

Question 2

How do tropical storms spin?

Answer 2

The spin is anticlockwise in the Northern hemisphere, and clockwise in the Southern hemisphere.

Question 3

What is the centre of a storm called?

Answer 3

The centre of a storm is called the eye- it’s up to 50 km across and is caused by descending low air.

There is very low pressure, light winds, no clouds, no rain and high temperature in the eye.

Question 4

What is the eye surrounded by a storm?

Answer 4

It is surrounded by the eye wall, where there’s spiralling rising air, very strong winds (around 160 km per hour), storm clouds, torrential rain and a low temperature.

Question 5

Towards an edge of a storm the wind speed does what?

Answer 5

The wind speed falls, the clouds become smaller and more scattered, the rain becomes less intense and the temperature increases.