24 (Photos by Cecil Shillingford) • Continued from previous page Prior to that, dates such as June 15 and November 15 were used. a worldwide basis was Hurricane John. That tropical cyclone lasted for 30 days as a typhoon in the Pacific in 1994. • The deadliest tropical cyclone remains Bhola. That storm killed more than 300,000 in Bangladesh in 1970. It became know as the Great Cyclone. • There were two occasions when there were four hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean at the same time. The occasions were August 22nd, 1893, and September 25th, 1998 with Georges, Ivan, Jeanne and Karl. • Cuba and The Bahamas have both been directly hit by more that 60 hurricanes in recorded history. However, Cuba is the only Caribbean country among the top 10 list of countries hit by tropical cyclones since 1970. • The earliest recorded hurricane for the Atlantic season occurred in 1908 on March 7. The latest was Hurricane Alice in 1954. Alice appeared on December 31 and lasted until January 5, 1955. • About 85% of intense hurricanes and about 60% of smaller storms originate what are called Easterly Waves that start over Africa and move westwards over the Atlantic Ocean. • The decision to start the hurricane season on June 1 and end on November 30 was taken in 1965. • “The Atlantic basin shows a very peaked season from August through October, with 78% of the tropical storm days, 87% of the minor hurricane days, and 96% of the major hurricane days occurring then, (Landsea (NHC) 1993). Maximum activity occurs in early to mid September. ‘Out of season’ tropical cyclones primarily occur in May or December.” • The physics that drives wind damage in hurricanes are not the mathematically linear forces. This means that a Category 5 storm could cause up to 250 times the damage of a Category 1 hurricane of the same size.
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