What causes hurricanes to rotate?

Question

What causes hurricanes to rotate?

Answer 1

One key element in the formation of any low pressure is wind.  In the tropics we have the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ).  

It occurs because the Winds to the northeast and southeast come together just above the Equator and with the rotation of the earth and coriolis causes the winds to rotate anti cyclonically.     If you look at a satellite photo you will see an area of showers and thunderstorms that go around the world..   That is your ITCZ.

Essentially clusters of these thunderstorms break away and form tropical waves and these can turn into Tropical Depressions,  Tropical Storms and Hurricanes.

Answer 2

The Coriolis Effect.  The Coriolis Effect is caused by the earth spinning round and round.  The Coriolis Effect makes hurricanes rotate because of the wind that is going the other way.

Good Luck!

Answer 3

Think of water going down the plug hole in your sink. The middle of the hurricane is an area of low pressure and air spirals in, in a similar way. anti-clockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the southern.

Answer 4

they always rotate the same direction in the northern hemisphere, and the opposite in the southern. Storms near the equator are more or less balanced and much more subject to local air/water currents.

The rotation of a hurricane or cyclone (in the southern hemisphere) is determined by the Coreolis effect, which is the fact that the atmosphere of the Earth lags behind the actual planet in rotation, because of the properties of gases, the axis of the earth and the solar orbit, and causes there to be more rotation the closer to the poles you get.

In the northern hemisphere, maximum coreolis rotation would be near the north pole, counterclockwise (anticyclonic), in the southern it would be near the south pole, clockwise (cyclonic), and rotation would be near-neutral at the equator.

Answer 5

Hurricanes are low pressure systems at whose centre,winds converge from all sides .This convergence forces the winds upwards and here the coriolis force comes into play  deflecting and giving a whirling(rotating) motion to the winds.