Typhoon ~ Tornado
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typhoon ~ twister ~ cyclone ~ hurricane ~ tornado
different words & different pronunciation]
These five words are used to express basically the same idea – “storm” which means ‘a period of bad weather when there is a lot of rain with strong winds, usually blown from the sea to the land, often with lightning, and often causes a lot of loss of human, animal and plant life, and a lot of damage to the property’, however, the name people use depends on where it happens, i.e. in which part of the world it occurs.
- cyclone/typhoon weather
The most common name of the six words for ‘storm’ is “cyclone” which is any large system of strong fast winds that rotates about a centre of low atmospheric pressure (depression) in a counter-clockwise direction to the north of Equator and in a clockwise direction to the south of Equator. Cyclonic winds move nearly in all regions of the Earth except the equatorial belt and are generally associated with heavy rain or snow.
“Hurricane” is the tropical cyclone (storm) in the Atlantic and Caribbean regions.
“Typhoon” is the tropical cyclone (storm) in the western Pacific Ocean and China Sea regions.
{In Western Australia, a cyclone (strong storm) is called a ‘willy-willies’.}
“Tornado”, however, is different in its nature, in that it forms in the clouds and passes downwards to the Earth. It is a powerful vortex, i.e. a funnel cloud which comes down in great rotational speeds of 480 Km/h – usually forms or passes on land, but some times it is formed on a large water surface, and then it is called a ‘waterspout’. Tornado events have been recorded on all the continents except on Antarctica; however, they are formed more frequently and strongly in North America, particularly in the central USA.
- a twister
[A ‘twister’ is the name used for a ‘tornado’ in the North America, mostly in the USA.]
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Mr. Kumar, an English language teacher, having taught in many countries around the world including Ethiopia and Oman shares this English Language Reference website using material that he has written and compiled during the past 20 years.