HURRICANES

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 367, 30 May 1928, Page 6

HURRICANES

Tli© islands of Haiti and Cuba act as hurricane buffers for Florida. These storms from the Cape Verde islands vent their fury along the coasts of Haiti and Cuba, or perhaps recurve their course and fly away to sea, where they blow themselves out. Hurricanes which come from the Caribbean Sea, as a rule, recurve before they strike Florida, and pass up the Mexican Gulf, laying a path of ruin through Alabama, Mississippi, or Texas. The typhoons of the Western Pacific Ocean, the cyclones of the Indian Ocean, and

the hurricanes of the North Atlantic and Caribbean Sea, are all quite similar. When the hurricane is still far away, what is known as the “bar of the cyclone” can be seen. It consists of a dense mass of rain clouds, which look as though they were resting on the horizon. These clouds remain for many hours, and are easily visible at either sunrise or sunset. Scientific observers study any changes which take place in this bar, or mass of clouds, thus finding out if the hurricane is altering its direction to any extent. In the region of the Caribbean Sea a vast army of birds, called “twaoo’s,” because of their curious cries, gives warning of a coming hurricane. These birds are sooty terns that live on the outlying sandy bars and islands, but, sensing the coming of a storm, they fly as quickly as possible to the mainland. They arrive on the coast before the hurricane appears, coming in that period of calm and quiet just before the great storm breaks. Natives call them “hurricane birds.” The day after the storm they have disappeared, to return to the mainland again only when another hurricane is hastening toward the coast. People commonly confuse hurricanes and tornadoes, although the two types of storms are entirely different. The hurricane is the storm itself. It consists of a violent, whirling windstorm that blows at a high velocity. A tornado, on the other hand, is only a shoot or branch of a violent storm. The tornado concentrates its attack upon j a small area. It is a funnel-shaped cloud that causes great damage where- ! ever it touches the earth, and spreads ruin and destruction only when its tail j strikes the earth.