On October 22nd,
Hurricane Mitch hit Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador,
Guatemala, Yucatan Peninsula and South Florida.
Hurricane Mitch is
known mainly for its demolishing, it was formed on October 22nd 1998,
it became one of the strongest and deadliest Atlantic
hurricanes ever
recorded, now I will tell you how hurricanes form. The
Hurricane must
originate over ocean water that is least 26.5 °C. Hurricanes draw their
energy from the warm water of the tropics and latent heat of
condensation. There must be an atmosphere that cools quickly with
height so that it is potentially unstable. If the air is unstable, it
will continue rising and the disturbance will grow. The disturbance
will only grow when winds at all levels of the atmosphere from the
ocean up to 30,000 feet or higher are blowing at the same speed and
from the same direction. In other words, there must be low values of
vertical wind shear. The hurricane will not form closer than
approximately 500 kilometers to the equator because the Coriolis Force
is too weak. It is the Coriolis Force (an effect that results from the
turning of the earth) that initially makes the cyclone spiral and
maintains the low pressure of the disturbance. An upper atmosphere high
pressure area above the growing storm should be present. The air in
such high pressure areas is flowing outward. This pushes away the air
that is rising in the storm, which encourages even more air to rise
from the low levels. Hurricanes will not always form if these
conditions are present. However, a hurricane will only form if these
conditions are present. It made 6-7 billion worth of damage. There were
10,861–18,000 fatalities (or deaths), the highest record ever since the
almighty “Great Hurricane” that occurred in 1780, it came in first rank
for 22,000 deaths while "Galveston" comes in third for 8,000-12,000
deaths, “Fifi” comes in fourth for 8,000-10,000 deaths and “Dominican
Republic” comes in last for 2000-8000 deaths. It was a tropical wave
that moved from Africa on October 10th across the Atlantic Ocean and
was disorganized when entered the Caribbean Sea on October 18th. After
the long voyage that took 12 days, the horror is about to begin.
Unfortunately the convection steadily increased, and on October 22, the
wave organized into Tropical Depression Thirteen while 415 miles (670
km) south of Kingston, Jamaica. Under weak steering currents, it
drifted westward and intensified into a tropical storm on the 23rd
while 260 miles east-southeast of San Andrés Island. Initially,
intensification was limited due to an upper level low causing vertical
wind shear over Tropical Storm Mitch. As the storm executed a small
loop to the north, the shear weakened, allowing the system to
strengthen. Mitch attained hurricane status on October 24 while 295
miles (475 km) south of Jamaica, and with warm water temperatures and
well-defined outflow, the hurricane rapidly strengthened. During a
24-hour period on the 24th and 25th, the central pressure dropped 52
mbar, and on the 26th Mitch reached a peak of 180 mph (290 km/h) and a
pressure of 905 mbar, one of the lowest pressures ever recorded in an
Atlantic hurricane, by the way, mbar stands for the bar (symbol bar)
and the millibar (symbol mbar, also mb) are units of pressure. They are
not SI units, but accepted (although discouraged) for use with the SI.
The bar is still widely used in descriptions of pressure because it is
about the same as atmospheric pressure. Now about the impact of
hurricane Mitch it has killed deaths 3 in Panama, 7 in Costa Rica, 3 in
Jamaica, 3,800 in Nicaragua, 6,500 in Honduras 256 in Guatemala, 239 in
El Salvador, 11 in Belize, 9 in Mexico 2, in the United States and 31
offshore for a total of 11,000. As I said earlier on, there was $6-7
billion worth of damage. Many people were left without homes, but
eventually got reunited with a shelter for time while construction
workers rebuilt their new houses.