By Dillon Brandt/GG Staff Writer
Since we live in the Midwest, most people know what a tornado is, but not a hurricane.
There’s not really any difference between tornadoes and hurricanes, but they have drastically different scales. They are created under different circumstances and have different impacts on our environment.
Tornadoes are “small-scale circulations.” The largest observed horizontal dimensions in the most severe cases are 1 to 1.5 miles. They most often form in association with severe thunderstorms that develop in the high wind environments of the Central Plains during spring and early summer, when the large-scale wind flow provides favorable conditions for the sometimes violent clash between the moist warm air from the Gulf of Mexico with the cold dry continental air coming from the northwest. However, tornadoes can form in many different circumstances and places around the globe.
The most recent hurricane to hit was Hurricane Matthew that became the first Category 5 hurricane since Hurricane Felix in 2007. A Category 5 means that wind speeds were up to 157 mile per hour or more with buildings and major roads being destroyed.
Hurricane Matthew ended up destroying nearly 90 percent of southern Haiti, killing nearly 900 people. Some bigger cities have not even been reached yet, and there are fears that more bodies will be discovered under the rubble.
But the Hurricane didn’t stop there. It hit the U.S. late last week, with a special concern surrounding Jacksonville’s St. Johns River, which could be overwhelmed by water pushed into it by the storm.
The Hurricane Center said a tide gauge reported a storm surge of 4.28 feet. After killing hundreds in Haiti and other Caribbean nations, Matthew’s frightening power led to the deaths of four people in Florida.
The now Category 2 hurricane, is losing some of its wind speed, but still left more than 1 million people without power in Florida as Matthew spent the day still driving north just off the state’s east coast.
Late Friday, Matthew was hovering off the coast of Georgia and headed toward South Carolina, where officials had issued warnings about the possibility of the dangerous storm surge bringing with it up to 15 inches of rain.
