What is the difference between a hurricane and an typhoon, a cyclone and a tornado?
: A: Hurricanes and typhoons are both the kinds of storms known as tropical cyclones, which form over warm oceans. If the storm is over the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico or the Pacific Ocean east of the International Date Line, it’s called a hurricane. If the storm is over the Pacific west of the Date Line and north of the equator, it’s a typhoon. Elsewhere, such as in the South Pacific or the Indian Ocean, these storms are just called “cyclones.” In case you’re wondering, if a storm crosses the Date Line it changes from being a hurricane to a typhoon, or vice versa. Our story about Hawaiian hurricanes has a sidebar about a storm that did both. (Related:Hurricanes rarely hit Hawaii) The word cyclone is interesting. It was coined by Henry Piddington, a British official in India in the middle of the 19th century who studied and wrote about storms, to describe the storms we now call tropical cyclones. But, in the 19th century and into the 20th century, many people includin
