Why does 80% of huricanes form off the coast of Africa but yet Africa never gets hit with any of the storms?

Question

Just curious..

Answer 1

West Africa doesn't get hit, because the prevailing winds move from east to west, pushing all the storms toward North America and the Caribbean. The storms always develop over warm ocean water, which is to the west of Africa, and the storms always move west, they will never hit Africa

Answer 2

Very simple. The flow of the trade winds in that area are from east to west. Tropical systems form off the west coast of Africa and move across the southern Atlantic into the Americas.

Answer 3

the trade winds go towad the west so hurricanes are always moving generally west when they fist form.

sometimes a high pressure of frontal system will occasionally make it hit africa, but this is very rare, but it isnt rare for a storm to head eastward

Answer 4

Q1. Why do 80% of Hurricanes form off the coast of Africa?

Q2. Why is Africa never hit with storms?

A1. It is a lesser pecentage.

A2. It is African storms that lead to the formation of hurricanes. Whereas Cyclones attack Africa from the east.

Africa has storms and damage of allsorts from Sandstorms in the Sahara to Cyclones in Madagascar. If that weren't enough they get plagues of locusts too!

Answer 5

The atmospheric wind flow at the latitude where tropical systems form is east to west, thus they get conducted away from Africa.  The tropical waves that do go on to form hurricanes normally come off Africa, bu they need the warm tropical waters as fuel for growth.