How are hurricanes and tornadoes different?

Question

How are hurricanes and tornadoes different?

Answer 1

Tornadoes form on land and hurricanes form over water.

Answer 2

While both tropical cyclones and tornadoes are atmospheric vortices, they have little in common. Tornadoes have diameters on the scale of 100s of meters and are produced from a single convective storm (i.e. a thunderstorm or cumulonimbus). A tropical cyclone, however, has a diameter on the scale of 100s of kilometers and is comprised of several to dozens of convective storms. Additionally, while tornadoes require substantial vertical shear of the horizontal winds (i.e. change of wind speed and/or direction with height) to provide ideal conditions for tornado genesis, tropical cyclones require very low values (less than 10 m/s [23 mph]) of tropospheric vertical shear in order to form and grow. These vertical shear values are indicative of the horizontal temperature fields for each phenomenon: tornadoes are produced in regions of large temperature gradient, while tropical cyclones are generated in regions of near zero horizontal temperature gradient. Tornadoes are primarily an over-land phenomena as solar heating of the land surface usually contributes toward the development of the thunderstorm that spawns the vortex (though over-water tornadoes have occurred). In contrast, tropical cyclones are purely an oceanic phenomena - they die out over-land due to a loss of a moisture source. Lastly, tropical cyclones have a lifetime that is measured in days, while tornadoes typically last on the scale of minutes.

http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/tcfaq...

Answer 3

they are similar, but on totally different scales. hurricanes form over sea and typically span hundreds of miles across, and reach wind speeds in excess of 100mph. tornadoes can form over land or sea and are generally less than 1 mile in diameter, but can reach speeds in excess of 200mph.

Answer 4

One is over land and the other is over water. The pressure is different in both of them. Hurricanes have insanely low pressure!

Answer 5

A hurrican will blow your house down, a tornado will pick it up and relocate it for you!

Answer 6

It is obvious!!!

Answer 7

Hurricanes are tropical storms that can mass produce severe weather and tornadoes, as well as storm surge(coastal floods), and torrential rains, and affect  mainly coastal areas, and Tornadoes are violent brief windstorms that are associated with severe thunderstorm outbreaks in the Interior Heartlands.

Answer 8

Hurricanes, tornadoes and any convective low pressure is the result of unstable air masses; i.e. cold air over moist and warm air. But while tornadoes are extremely limited super-cells, hurricanes are very large systems that usually start over the ocean when the water comes over a certain temperature.