Are hurricanes more destructive than tornadoes?

Question

Are hurricanes more destructive than tornadoes?

Answer 1

Like many other questions, the answer is "it depends"..........

In aggregate, a large hurricane will spread major damage over a very large area and some of the consequences of that damage can be devastating. Remember New Orleans?

A tornado on the other hand can do extreme damage, but is typically much more localized. It's drivers are much smaller than those of a hurricane and do not last anywhere as long.

So there you are, how do you decide which is more destructive? If I lived near the Southern Atlantic or Gulf coasts, I would fear the hurricanes more, but if I were far inland, a tornado would be more fearsome

Answer 2

hurricans are not as powerfull as tornadoes, but they are much larger and can cause widespread damage. Tornadoes are isolated but have much stronger winds (most of them)

Answer 3

Hurricanes and flooding from are the Most Destructive According for the USA according to Harris Poll of U.S. May 16, 2006.

the rest of the top 5 according to the US Harris Poll Survey and USGS. This is for the world.

An earthquake and volcanism's is a shaking or trembling of the earth that is volcanic or tectonic in origin.

A typhoon is a tropical cyclone occurring in the region of the Philippines or the China sea .

A tsunami is great sea wave produced by submarine earth movement or volcanic eruption.

A tornado is a violent destructive whirling wind accompanied by a funnel-shaped cloud that progresses in a narrow path over the land.

However, the USGS rates Earthquakes as the highest in the USA if they combine aftereffects from them like Landslides, Volcanic anomalies, and Tsunami's together

Answer 4

Most of the time, yes. The area that a hurricane covers is MUCH larger than that of a tornado, and while the damage caused by both is similar, more properties are damaged by a hurricane than by a tornado.

And bdwolfhound, New Orleans wasn't the only city affected by Katrina - what about the ENTIRE Mississippi Gulf Coast?

Answer 5

Absolutely yes! Hurricanes don't have winds as high as tornados but the total area they cover is on the order of thousands of miles. Tornados are much more localized, seldom covering a total area more than 10 or 20 miles long and a mile or so wide at the most.

Answer 6

They are larger, but unless they are a category 5 they won't cause as much devastation relative to area as an F-5 tornado..

Answer 7

Yes;If you consider the size of destruction, hurricane are mosre destuctive.No tornado,whatever be its strength, will kill more than 100000 people and flood such a vast area as the recent cyclone(hurricane) 'Nargis" did in Myanmar.