The snowstorm that kept many schools in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Maine, and Washington D.C. closed on February 26, 2010 is being called a snowacane. This is in reference to a snow storm and a hurricane. Many are saying that it is caused by El Niño because the storms are coming from the Pacific this year. The National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration also know as the NOAA, says that “El Niño is a disruption of the ocean-atmosphere system in the tropical Pacific having important consequences for weather and climate around the globe.” It has unusually high water temperatures in the Pacific. This is what is causing the constant snow storms in 2010, because this is an El Niño year. Basically what happens is that when the warmer waters in the Pacific evaporate, the water vapor from the evaporation is very warm. So, when it condenses the warm water vapor coming down meets the cool air making snow. The winds of El Niño push towards the United States, as well as other countries, causing massive snow storms. The warm gas from the El Niño oceans in the Pacific meets the cold, winter air of the eastern United States and a larger amount of precipitation occurs. As the air gets cooler, snow takes the place of the rain and just like a large rainfall; there is a snowstorm or a blizzard. Global warming is making these effects more severe.
The scientific name for a hurricane is a tropical cyclone. To create a tropical cyclone, it needs first warm ocean water and secondly needs wind. NASA says that “Meteorologists have divided the development of a tropical cyclone into four stages: Tropical disturbance, tropical depression, tropical storm, and full-fledged tropical cyclone.” First, a tropical disturbance is mainly when water vapor from a warm ocean forms a huddle of thunderstorm clouds. Second is a tropical depression. As the thunderstorm of the tropical disturbance grow bigger and higher, the air on the top is cooling and becoming unstable. The air pressure grows higher, causing more winds to move away from the air pressure area. The movement causes the pressure at the surface to drop, creating more thunderstorms. When the winds of the thunderstorm reach a certain point it is called a tropical depression. Next is a tropical storm which is essentially just the when the wind speeds up from the tropical depression it becomes a tropical storm. Finally is the tropical cyclone. When the winds speed up even higher, the storm is legitimately a tropical cyclone. The trade winds, which are winds the blow from east to west, push the cyclone toward the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico, or the southeastern coast of the United States. The cyclone is usually the most powerful when still in the water, but close to land. When the monster reaches land, it calms down slowly, the dies out while still dumping quite a bit of rain on the land. This has a major affect on the people living in the areas where the hurricane hits, of course. It caused many power lines to drop and floods were also a huge problem. People were left without electricity in a town full of water and snow.
As you can see, there are many similarities in the formation of the hurricane and the El Niño snowstorm. They both form from warm waters evaporating and condensing, forming storms, in this case, a snow storm. Also, the winds from this snowstorm and a typical hurricane were very similar. Thus, the name snowacane was given; it was a combination of a hurricane and a snowstorm.
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