Current Affair Diary 19/11/2020

Hurricane Iota

✓Hurricane Iota has made landfall in Nicaragua in Central America and has developed into a category five storm.

✓ Hurricanes are categorised on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, which rates them on a scale of 1 to 5 based on wind speed.
✓Hurricanes that reach category three or higher are called ‘major hurricanes’ because of their potential to cause devastating damage to life and property.

✓Tropical cyclones or hurricanes use warm, moist air as fuel, and therefore form over warm ocean waters near the equator.

✓ As NASA describes it, when the warm, moist air rises upward from the surface of the ocean, it creates an area of low air pressure below.
✓ Air from the surrounding areas rushes to fill this place, eventually rising when it becomes warm and moist too.
✓ When the warm air rises and cools off, the moisture forms clouds. This system of clouds and winds continues to grow and spin, fuelled by the ocean’s heat and the water that evaporates from its surface.
✓ As such storm systems rotate faster and faster, an eye forms in the centre.
Storms that form towards the north of the equator rotate counterclockwise, while those that form to the south spin clockwise because of the rotation of the Earth.

#GALLANT IAS