What is the difference between cyclone, hurricane and typhoon?

Question

A cyclone is a low pressure atmospheric mass. In the northern hemisphere they rotate counterclockwise. A high pressure mass is called an anticyclone and rotates clockwise.

I've often wondered why we don't have violent high pressure events. Maybe someone could tell me that... ;-)

Anyway, we DO have various violent low pressure events. Under certain circumstances, a cyclonic mass can get itself worked up into a frenzy and it will start winding itself up faster and tighter as conditions permit, until you end up with a hurricane.

Oddly, just a couple of weeks ago I actually heard a weatherman refer to Hurricane Isabel as "a cyclone". This surprised me because I had always held them to be separate entities.

Atlantic hurricanes are birthed almost entirely in one of two places: the Gulf of Mexico and the west coast of Africa. Interestingly (and I may be wrong here), the African low pressure pockets seem to form over land, and then pinwheel on out to sea on a journey to the Caribbean.

Hurricanes and typhoons are the same animal depending on where you live. In the Atlantic (and often the North American Pacific coast, where they are quite rare) they are called hurricanes. Everywhere else in the world they are called typhoons.

Cyclones, hurricanes and tornadoes. To swipe a line from the 3 Stooges, they're all "the same thing...only different".

To go a step beyond your question, tornadoes are a special breed of spinning low pressure air mass. For one thing, we still don't know for sure how they form. One big theory scientists were studying about 10 years ago was the possibility that fluid mechanics generated rapidly spinning HORIZONTAL tubes of air inside storm cells. Somehow these tubes are knocked off kilter and one end of a tube (or tubes) would suddenly start descending towards the ground. (and I now wonder what came of that study/theory?)

Well, that's my 2 cents. Hope it helps...

Answer 1

It's a bit tricky.  A cyclone (note lower case lettering) is ANY rotating low pressure system.  They have many different names, depending on their characteristics.  

A Cyclone (note capitalization) is simply a hurricane that exists over the Indian Ocean area.  They are the same type of tropical system, just called by a different name depending where they are.

Thus Hurricane Isabel was a "cyclone", but since it was over the Atlantic basin, it was "Hurricane Isabel" and not "Cyclone Isabel"  See the difference?  Typhoons are the same thing as well, but they are called typhoons if they exist over the western Pacific Ocean.

Answer 2

it is almost the same that is still nature's destroyer

Answer 3

never had any of those here,,,,

Answer 4

Uh, why'd you answer your own question...