Rain bands are stretches of rain clouds that go far beyond the hurricane’s eye wall, usually hundreds of kilometers. This is where rain and winds are the strongest and heaviest. The eye wall is composed of the strongest ring of thunderstorms and surrounds the eye. Here, winds are tranquil and skies are partly cloudy, sometimes even clear. The eye is the calm center of the hurricane where the cooler drier air sinks back down to the surface of the water. Hurricanes have distinctive parts: the eye, eye wall, and rain bands. This inward and upward spiral prevents the storm from ripping itself apart. Hurricanes can maintain winds in a constant direction and increasing speeds as air rotates about and gathers air into its center. Warm ocean waters of at least 26 degrees Celsius (74☏) provides the energy needed for the storm to become a hurricane. Tropical cyclones need two primary ingredients to form: warm water and constant wind directions. If the winds of the tropical storm hit 119 kmph (74 mph), the storm is classified as a hurricane. Systems with wind speeds between 63 kmph (39 mph) and 118 kmph (73 mph) are considered tropical storms. This creates an area of rotating thunderstorms called a tropical depression with winds 62 kmph (38 mph) or less. As winds are drawn higher, increasing air pressure causes the rising thunderstorms to disperse from the center of the storm. Eventually, the clouds grow large enough to develop a pattern, where the wind begins to circulate around a center point. Tropical cyclones begin as small tropical disturbances where rain clouds build over warm ocean waters. Meteorologists have classified the development of a tropical cyclone into four stages: Tropical disturbance, tropical depression, tropical storm, and tropical cyclone. The Atlantic hurricane season begins on June 1st and ends on November 30th, and the Eastern Pacific hurricane season begins on May 15th and ends on November 30th. Tropical cyclones that develop over the Atlantic and eastern Pacific Oceans are considered hurricanes. Hurricanes, also known as typhoons and cyclones, fall under the scientific term, tropical cyclone.
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