hurricanes FAQ

I was reading the comments over on Jeff Masters’ blog on weather underground, watching Rita grow into a cat 5, and they were talking about Typhoon Tip, the largest recorded megastorm ever, in 1979. It had sustained winds of 190MPH and covered over 1000 square miles. And I got to wondering — what’s the difference between a hurricane and a typhoon?

Google to the rescue! There’s an FAQ about all this stuff. Its very…meteorological.

FAQ: HURRICANES, TYPHOONS AND TROPICAL CYCLONES (Part 1)
FAQ: HURRICANES, TYPHOONS AND TROPICAL CYCLONES (Part 2)

(To answer the actual question: typhoons and hurricanes are the same thing. They’re just named differently in different parts of the world).