Question about wind storms:Who was right,me or my dad?

Question

The other day I was in the car with my dad and he asked me a question that apparently didnt understand when he was asking me, and it led to an 1h+ argument;and at the end we still didnt agree.

While in the car,he the radio on NPR, and they were reporting on a tornadoe that happened in the US that killed several 100's& a cyclone or something that happened in Asia that killed 10's of thousands. Becuase the guy reporting used one word when describing the one in the US and another when describing the one in Asia, my dad asked What's the difference between a tornadoe and a cyclone(he didnt say cyclone but I forget the word he used)?

My basic answer was nothing really,that they were pretty much the samething(the principals are the same),but that they are called two different things becuase they happened on oppisite sides of the globe.We call them tordoes here,and they call them something else over there;but they are still the same phenomena.

please wait befor answering I'm not done yet

Answer 1

They were two different types of "cyclones".  What struck Myanmar was not a tornado, but what we over here call a hurricane.  They are called Cyclones (note capitalization of the word) in the north Indian Ocean.  A tornado is another type of cyclone (note lower case lettering) which occurs on a much smaller scale, but can have much higher winds.  Technically a "cyclone" is ANY rotating low pressure area.  They all rotate counter-clockwise in the northern hemisphere, and clockwise over the southern hemisphere.

It is confusing because the word cyclone is what some people call a tornado, which is technically correct.  Myanmar was struck by Cyclone Nargis, a named tropical cyclone just like a hurricane, or typhoon.

Hope this clears up the confusion.

Answer 2

I cyclone is much larger than a tornado. They are very similar. Tornadoes are usually accompanied by a thunderstorm.