(how it) Works Wednesday: Eye of the Hurricane

(how it) Works Wednesday: The Eye of the Hurricane

Yes, it’s Thursday, but this will still be How It Works Wednesday because I prefer the alliteration. Don’t judge. :)

This week’s (how it) Works Wednesday was inspired by this video, captured by stormchasers as Hurricane Michael made landfall in Florida earlier this month.

I was awestruck. Being a weather buff since I was like, six, I knew that hurricanes developed eyes, and I knew that they looked something like this, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen the eye of a hurricane from ground level. This firsthand view is spectacular. This eye, as the videographers note, demonstrates the “stadium effect” well: the regression of the eyewall thunderstorms away from the center as they increase in height.

It also captures the paradox of the eye of a hurricane. The sun is shining, the winds are somewhat calm, there is no rain, and yet the trees stripped of vegetation and snapped in half provide evidence of the violent winds raking the area not more than 15 minutes before the video started.

So of course, this triggered questions. All major hurricanes feature well-developed eyes, areas of calm, at the very center of the storm where the barometric pressure is lowest. If you know much about storms, low barometric pressure usually corresponds to higher storminess; and yet here we are, in the center of the hurricane, itself perhaps the most intense storm to occur on planet Earth, and the area of lowest barometric pressure is the calmest part of the storm.

Why?

What, exactly, is a hurricane eye?

Before we can answer that, here’s a basic definition of a hurricane eye: an area of calm at the center of hurricanes where the barometric pressure is lowest. Hurricanes form from large areas of thunderstorm activity. As more storms form and gather, they begin to rotate around a common center, forming a ring of strong updrafts that triggers a feedback loop: warm moist air is drawn up, releases its energy, which strengthens the updraft, which draws even more warm moist air into the storm from the ocean below. This area is called the eyewall, a region of towering thunderstorms where the most intense winds occur.
Somewhat paradoxically, as this air rises, some of it cools and sinks into the center of the storm, compressing the air and dissolving the clouds. This area of high pressure occurs just above the area of lowest pressure in the whole storm.

(My brain = WAT)

Some hurricanes have ragged, broken eyes, eyes that feature heavy rain, or eyes filled with cloud cover, but these all indicate weaker or weakening storms. Strong storms always feature an eye, anywhere between 20-40 miles across, and they are necessary for hurricanes to achieve high windspeeds.

So again, why?

Um.....we don’t know, exactly.

Cyclogenesis remains a mystery in general, and that includes both tornadoes and hurricanes. Just exactly why it forms an eye is the subject of debate...a debate I don’t understand so I won’t try to relate. (Lol, sign me up for the next rap battle, Marshall.)

In any case, that’s my how it Works Wednesday...er, Tuesday. Wait, Thursday. Hope you enjoyed!