Hurricanes Vs. Tornadoes Vs. You
In North America, warm weather brings disaster by air – by hurricane and tornado. Tornadoes can strike anytime, but occur most frequently in spring and early summer. Hurricanes hit from June through November. Both are awesome forms of windpower that represent nature at its fiercest.
But which is meaner? Which is deadlier? Which is the baddest atmospheric force on Earth? We matched them head-to-head and broke them down with some scientific facts to see which is the true king of disaster in the sky.
WIND SPEED
Tornadoes – Packed into tight, swirling spirals, the winds of the most powerful tornadoes can reach speeds up to 318 miles per hour (512 km/h). Just how fast is that? Faster than a Formula One race car, faster than many airplanes can fly, and almost half the speed of sound. At that speed, wind can fling cars across football fields and reduce the sturdiest house to rubble. The majority of tornadoes rage at less than 200 miles per hour (320 km/h), but that’s still fast enough to uproot trees and destroy your average mobile home.
Hurricanes – A stiff breeze of, say, 30 miles per hour (48 km/h) will blow your trusty umbrella inside out and make it hard to walk upwind. Now triple that speed, and you’ve got a hurricane on your hands – a weak one. If you wanted a strong hurricane, you’d have to whip up sustained winds of over 150 miles per hour (240 km/h), with gusts that top 200 miles per hour (320 km/h). At hurricane wind speeds, loose debris becomes a barrage of flying missiles. Even if you could stand up straight in a hurricane wind, it wouldn’t be a good idea.
Advantage: Tornadoes.
It’s all in the numbers. Even category 5 hurricanes make it only halfway up the tornado intensity scale. There’s no wind on Earth stronger than the wind in a tornado.
SIZE
Tornadoes – Tornadoes are small as atmospheric phenomena go. The funnel at ground-point is usually a few dozen to several hundred yards across. Some tornadoes reach more impressive widths – more than a mile (1.6 km) at ground-point. Yet because tornadoes move rapidly along the ground, they can cause damage over a larger area than their size might suggest. Long-lived tornadoes can cut a swath of destruction dozens of miles long.
Hurricanes – Hurricanes are huge; they can cover entire states. One look at a hurricane through a satellite photo shows just how big they can be. The average hurricane is 200 to 300 miles (320 to 485 km) in diameter, and massive hurricanes can span 700 miles (1,125 km) or more. The size of a hurricane, however, is not directly related to its wind speed or destructive force. Small ones can pack an incredible punch, while large ones can be relatively mild.
Advantage: Hurricanes.
Tornadoes may dominate the sky, but hurricanes swallow it whole.
FREQUENCY AND RANGE
Tornadoes – Tornadoes tend to form over flat terrain, but they can travel across mountains and form over water, too. In 1997, a tornado even passed through the heart of downtown Miami. They occur on practically every continent, but they’re most common, and most powerful, in the United States, where more than 1,000 strike each year. During the biggest outbreak of the last century, the Super Outbreak of April 1974, 148 hit in just two days.
Hurricanes – Hurricanes must have tropical ocean water to form and maintain their intensity. They lose strength rapidly when they make landfall or move into cooler climes. This greatly limits both their frequency and the places they can strike. The Atlantic Ocean, for example, manages to make only about six full-fledged hurricanes each year. The worst year was 2005, when the Atlantic whipped up 15, including Hurricane Katrina.
Advantage: Tornadoes.
What tornadoes lack in size, they make up for in frequency. And they can get around the country, too.
DAMAGE
Tornadoes – Tornadoes pack a wallop, and when they strike populated areas, the damage can be severe. Generally, though, it’s localized and random. Tornadoes are notorious for destroying houses on one side of the street while leaving those on the other untouched. In a typical year, tornado losses across the United States might total $1 billion. The worst tornadoes – like the one that struck Oklahoma City in 1999 or that destroyed half the town of Xenia, Ohio, in 1974 – might cause $1 billion in damage all by themselves.
Hurricanes – With their size and longevity, hurricanes can wreak tremendous havoc. Wind, rain, and storm surge can destroy homes, erode shores, and flood entire cities. Damage is determined as much by when and where a hurricane strikes as by the strength of the storm. When Hurricane Andrew struck Florida and Louisiana in 1992, it did $42 billion in damage in today’s dollars. Damage from Hurricane Katrina’s devastating hit on New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, the worst ever, may top $100 billion.
Advantage: Hurricanes.
Tornadoes pack a solid punch, but hurricanes deliver a knockout combination of wind and water that tornadoes simply cannot match.
DEATHS
Tornadoes – Tornadoes remain deadly, but improved weather warning systems have lessened their bite. They now kill about 60 people in the United States each year. Although they can lift humans into the air and hurl them long distances, flying debris and collapsing buildings cause most deaths. The worst event on record is the Great Tri-State Tornado of March 1925, a mile-wide monster that tore across 219 miles (352 km) of Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana, killing 695 people, injuring 2,207, and destroying more than 15,000 homes.
Hurricanes – Improved weather warning systems have helped people run from hurricanes, too. A century ago, a storm that hit Galveston, Texas, killed 8,000 people. A 1928 storm that struck Lake Okeechobee in Florida killed 2,500. Still, it remains hard to run from a storm so big. Even with satellite tracking and highway evacuation plans, Hurricane Katrina caused more than 1,600 deaths in 2005. And not every place has such modern tools. In 1991, a massive storm struck low-lying sections of Bangladesh and killed almost 140,000 people.
Advantage: Hurricanes.
Hurricanes kill far more people than tornadoes, especially worldwide. (Yet neither storm comes close to nature’s worst killers: flooding and drought.)
POWER
Tornadoes – Yard for yard, tornadoes pack the most destructive force of any atmospheric phenomenon, possessing a pinpoint violence unmatched by any other storm. In fact, the energy in one short-lived twister could power your house for a year. Don’t be too impressed, though. The “supercell” thunderstorms that typically spawn tornadoes have a total energy output thousands of times greater than that.
Hurricanes – The sheer size of a hurricane allows it to unleash massive amounts of destructive power on anything unfortunate enough to be engulfed by it. And unlike tornadoes, which rarely last for more than an hour, a hurricane can rage for days. All of that adds up to staggering energy levels. A good-sized hurricane can release enough energy to power the entire world for a year – as much as a nuclear bomb.
Advantage: Hurricanes.
Even though tornadoes produce an impressive display of ground-churning power, they lack hurricanes’ size and stamina. If that doesn’t convince you, consider this: Hurricanes are so powerful they can spin off tornadoes of their own.
And the Winner Is . . . Hurricanes.
Both hurricanes and tornadoes are deadly and destructive. But in this case, size does matter. Tornadoes may be more visually spectacular, and evoke more popular excitement and interest, but the sheer magnitude and power of the hurricane is unmatched among nature’s skyborne forces.
