How far inland can a hurricane travel before wearing itself out?
Hurricanes weaken after making landfall because they lack the warm, moist air from the ocean that supplies their source of energy. Typically, the winds start dying off soon after landfall, so that within a day even a major hurricane has decayed to just a tropical storm. Since the weakening is more a factor of time than distance, a fast moving hurricane can bring strong winds further inland than can a hurricane that is moving slowly. Typically, the farthest inland one would expect to experience hurricane winds would be a couple hundred miles from the coast. EXPERT: Chris Landsea National Weather Service QUESTION: You’ve presented the cause of hurricanes well and thoroughly but I’d like some discussion on solutions. Besides better predictions, I’d like to hear some discussion on eliminating the threat posed by hurricanes altogether, by eliminating the hurricane. Is there any research being done in this area? If not, why not? Now that we understand how hurricanes form and sustain themselv
