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Subject: Re: Hurricanes and tornadoes Posted on: Thu, 15 Sep 2005 00:33:49 +0000 (UTC)


> How would you define the exact area in the US where a hurricane
> could hit; and where a tornado could hit?

Tornadoes have been reported in every state of the Union except Alaska,
and in many parts of the worlds besides the US. As a practical matter,
the risk is small and the tornadoes usually weaker west of the
Rockies, due to the combination of weather conditions needed to most
often produce them. See for instance
http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/NWSTornado/
and in particular
http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/NWSTornado/pic14.jpg
as well as this map showing the occurrence of powerful (F3 and above)
tornadoes over the last few decades:
http://www.fema.gov/pdf/fima/fema431_ch1.pdf


An Atlantic hurricane per se making landfall is rather more
delimitable. However, it is important to note that something that's
no longer technically a hurricane can still penetrate far inland or
even across the Atlantic as a more or less organized storm system with
dangerous winds and a lot of rain (says the National Hurricane Center:
"A large portion of the damage in four of the fifteen costliest
tropical cyclones resulted from inland flooding caused by torrential
rain.") I've been in a pair of hurricanes that were Category 3 at
landfall and can attest that they were still rather daunting 100-150
miles inland.

See for instance
http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/understanding/hurricane_cycle.shtml
and
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/paststate.shtml




> Is Hawaii free of natural disasters? It has a volcano

The Hawaiian Islands are more accurately described as *being*
volcanoes, three of them considered active and several more classed as
dormant rather than outright extinct. The islands owe their existence
to volcanism. This is an example of an island arc thought to
represent the travel of the crust over a relatively fixed hot-spot in
the mantle. See for instance
http://gohawaii.about.com/cs/volcanoespark/a/2002_lava_flow.htm
http://www.nps.gov/havo/
http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/GG/HCV/haw_volc.html

They got a hurricane just a few years ago, as they do from time to
time, and various islands have occasionally experienced tsunamis,
volcanically related earthquakes, floods, and other problems. See
http://www.mothernature-hawaii.com/