The only difference between a hurricane, a cyclone, and a

typhoon is the location where the storm occurs.

Hurricanes, cyclones, and typhoons are all the same weather phenomenon; we just use
different names for these storms in different places. In the Atlantic and Northeast Pacific, the
term hurricane is used. The same type of disturbance in the Northwest Pacific is called a
typhoon and cyclones occur in the South Pacific and Indian Ocean.

The ingredients for these storms include a pre-existing weather disturbance, warm tropical
oceans, moisture, and relatively light winds. If the right conditions persist long enough, they can
combine to produce the violent winds, incredible waves, torrential rains, and floods we associate
with this phenomenon.

In the Atlantic, hurricane season officially runs June 1 to November 30. However, while 97
percent of tropical activity occurs during this time period, there is nothing magical in these dates,
and hurricanes have occurred outside of these six months.

Avalanches
What is an Avalanche?

Technically, an avalanche is any amount of snow sliding down a mountainside. It can

be compared to a landslide, only with snow instead of earth. Another common term
for avalanche is snowslide. As an avalanche becomes nearer to the bottom of the
slope, it gains speed and power, this can cause even the smallest of snowslides to be a
major disaster.
There are two common types of avalanches, a Surface
Avalanche that occurs when a layer of snow with different
properties slides over another layer of snow. For example, when a
layer of dry loosely packed snow slides over a dense layer of wet
snow. The other common avalanche is known as a Full-Depth
Avalanche which, as its name would lead you to believe, occurs
when an entire snow cover, from the earth to the surface, slides
over the ground.
 Tornado Definition
by Laurent Cousineau
(Montreal)

A tornado is a localized, violently destructive windstorm that occurs

over land.

The powerful column of wind spirals around a center of low

atmospheric pressure.

The long, funnel-shaped cloud extending toward the ground is made

visible by both condensation and debris.

Furthermore, tornadoes often come with hailstorms and are

considered the most dangerous storm known to mankind.

Also called twisters, they travel across the ground at high speeds and
can kill in only a matter of seconds.

Rotation
Due to our planet's unique weather system, twisters rotate counter
clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere. On the other hand, they rotate
clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere.

Duration and Traveling Distance

Tornadoes can last anywhere from a few seconds a few hours.
Incidentally, some may even disappear and reappear minutes later.

Tornadoes can possibly form in a minute or less and can disappear

just as fast. In fact, many of these storms never actually come into
contact with the ground, creating only harmless funnels in the
thermosphere.

Usually, tornadoes travel less than 15 miles and will last less than
twenty minutes.

However, super storms which can travel over 100 miles will
sometimes occur. Despite their rare occurrence, they are responsible
for as much as 20 % of all tornado casualties.

Diameter
The typical twister has a diameter ranging from around 200 to 300
yards, whereas some grow large enough to spawn smaller tornadoes
known as satellite tornadoes.

Satellite tornadoes, the offspring of larger tornadoes, measure about

50 yards across but are quite fierce and can cause a lot of damage.

Moreover, they usually branch away from the parent funnel and will
follow different paths.

The Fujita Scale

Introduced by Tetsuya Fujita of the University of Chicago in 1971, the
Fujita Scale measures tornadoes in terms of the amount of damage
they cause.

F0 - Gale
With winds ranging from 40-72 mph (64-116 km/h), gale tornadoes will
cause light damage. Essentially, there will be some damage to
chimneys, branches broken off trees, damaged sign boards, and
shallow-rooted trees will be pushed over.

F1 - Moderate
With winds ranging from 73112 mph (117180 km/h), these
tornadoes will cause moderate damage. In essence, the surface of
roofs will be peeled, mobile homes will be pushed off foundations or
overturned, moving autos will be pushed off roads, and attached
garages may be destroyed.

F2 - Significant Damage
With winds ranging from 113157 mph (181253 km/h), these twisters
will cause significant damage. Roofs will be torn off frame houses,
mobile homes destroyed, boxcars overturned, large trees snapped or
uprooted, high-rise windows broken and blown in, as well as light-
object missiles generated.

F3 - Severe
With winds ranging from 158206 mph (254332 km/h), these
tornadoes will cause severe damage. Under these tornadoes, the
roofs and some walls of well-constructed homes are torn off, trains will
be overturned, most trees in forests will be uprooted, and heavy cars
will be lifted off the ground and thrown.

F4 - Devastating
With winds ranging from 207260 mph (333418 km/h), these
tornadoes will cause devastating damage. In this situation, well-
constructed houses will be leveled, structures with weak foundations
will be blown away a small distance, cars will be thrown, and large
missiles will be generated.
F5 - Incredible
With winds ranging from 261318 mph (419512 km/h), these
tornadoes will cause incredible damage. In this very dire situation,
strong frame houses will be lifted off foundations and carried
considerable distances to disintegrate, automobile sized missiles will
fly through the air in excess of 100m (109 yards), trees will be
completely debarked, and even steel reinforced concrete structures
will be badly damaged.

F6 - Inconceivable
Some will include an F6 tornado which is theoretically possible
although no such wind speed over 318 mph have ever been recorded.
However, it is possible that the 1999 Oklahoma City tornado, which
caused 1.9 billion dollars in damages and lasted 72 hours, may have
been an F6.

It should also be noted that some countries use the

updated Enhanced Fujita Scale. Although it also measures tornado
strength by damage caused, it takes into account the quality of
construction and standardizes different types of structures in
determining the degree of destruction.

Each year, 500 million dollars of damage is caused by tornadoes in

the United States.
TUSNAMI
Tsunamis are giant waves caused by earthquakes or volcanic eruptions under the sea. Out in
the depths of the ocean, tsunami waves do not dramatically increase in height. But as the
waves travel inland, they build up to higher and higher heights as the depth of the ocean
decreases. The speed of tsunami waves depends on ocean depth rather than the distance from
the source of the wave. Tsunami waves may travel as fast as jet planes over deep waters, only
slowing down when reaching shallow waters. While tsunamis are often referred to as tidal
waves, this name is discouraged by oceanographers because tides have little to do with these
giant waves.

DROUGHT

Drought is a complex phenomenon which is difficult to monitor and define. Hurricanes, for
example, have a definite beginning and end and can easily be seen as they develop and move.
Drought, on the other hand, is the absence of water. It is a creeping phenomenon that slowly
sneaks up and impacts many sectors of the economy, and operates on many different time
scales. As a result, the climatological community has defined four types of drought: 1)
meteorological drought, 2) hydrological drought, 3) agricultural drought, and 4) socioeconomic
drought. Meteorological drought happens when dry weather patterns dominate an area.
Hydrological drought occurs when low water supply becomes evident, especially in streams,
reservoirs, and groundwater levels, usually after many months of meteorological drought.
Agricultural drought happens when crops become affected. And socioeconomic drought relates
the supply and demand of various commodities to drought. Meteorological drought can begin
and end rapidly, while hydrological drought takes much longer to develop and then recover.
Many different indices have been developed over the decades to measure drought in these
various sectors. The U.S. Drought Monitor depicts drought integrated across all time scales and
differentiates between agricultural and hydrological impacts.

CYCLONE

A cyclone is defined as an area of low atmospheric pressure in which winds

circulate around counter-clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise
in the Southern Hemisphere. Air near the ground converges toward the center
of a cyclone and rises. This action produces unstable conditions and often
stormy weather, which can include clouds, precipitation, high winds and
sometimes thunderstorms. There are four major types of cyclones, with the
differences between them ranging from subtle to significant.

Tropical Cyclones
As their name implies, tropical cyclones form in the tropics. Tropical cyclones
obtain their energy from warm ocean waters above 26.5 degrees Celsius (80
degrees Fahrenheit). Unlike some other types of cyclones, tropical cyclones
do not have warm or cold fronts associated with them, but they do contained
thunderstorms, bands of rain, and a definitive pattern of wind circulation.
Tropical cyclones may be called by different names, depending on their
location and intensity. In the Atlantic and eastern Pacific, they are known as
hurricanes, tropical storms and tropical depressions. In the northwestern
Pacific, they are called typhoons or super-typhoons, while in the Indian Ocean
and southwestern Pacific, they are known simply as cyclones. Hurricanes
have sustained winds of at least 119 kilometers per hour (74 miles per hour);
tropical storms possess winds between 63 kilometers to 119 kilometers per
hour (39 and 74 miles per hour), while the name tropical depression is given
to tropical disturbances with winds below 63 kilometers per hour (39 miles per
hour).

Mid-Latitude Cyclones
Also known as extratropical cyclones, mid-latitude cyclones are associated
with cold and warm fronts. They have a clearly-defined life cycle which plays
out over the course of several days. Mid-latitude cyclones play an important
role in balancing heat energy throughout the Earth, by moving warm air
toward the poles and cooler air toward the equator. Mid-latitude cyclones, as
the name suggests, are found in the Earths middle latitudes, between
approximately 30 and 55 degrees. There is a substantial size difference
between tropical cyclones and mid-latitude cyclones. Tropical cyclones range
from 200 to 1,000 kilometers (124 to 621 miles) in diameter, while mid-latitude
cyclones are much larger, with diameters between 1,500 and 5,000 kilometers
(932 and 3,107 miles). Extratropical cyclones also differ from tropical cyclones
in that their strongest winds are approximately 12 kilometers (8 miles) high in
the atmosphere, while the strongest winds of tropical cyclones occur near
ground level. Unlike tropical cyclones, there is no wind speed scale for
extratropical cyclones they can be of any intensity. Some, such as what are
called Northeasters, can be extremely intense and hurricane-like, while others
are relatively mild.

Subtropical Cyclones
Subtropical cyclones are a hybrid of tropical and extratropical cyclones. They
occur in latitudes from the equator to about 50 degrees north or south.
Subtropical cyclones develop over warm water underneath a colder, high-level
low pressure system. Unlike mid-latitude cyclones, subtropical cyclones
cannot develop over land or cool water. Like tropical cyclones, they have
sustained winds, but they dont reach hurricane force. There is, however, a
wind speed scale for measuring subtropical cyclones. Subtropical cyclones
with sustained winds less than 63 kilometers per hour (39 miles per hour) are
known as subtropical depressions, while subtropical cyclones with winds
between 63 and 119 kilometers per hour (39 and 74 miles per hour) are called
subtropical storms. Unlike mid-latitude cyclones, subtropical storms are given
names, such as Subtropical Storm Gustav. Subtropical cyclones can
occasionally transform into tropical cyclones, or vice versa.

Mesoscale Cylones
Mesoscale cyclones, known as mesocylones for short, exist on a much
smaller scale than tropical, mid-latitude or subtropical cyclones. Mesocyclones
typically consist of rotating storms about 3 to 10 kilometers (2 to 6 miles) in
diameter. Mesocylones can form ahead of a cold front when a change in wind
direction and speed with height creates a horizontally rotating column of air.
Updrafts into the developing thunderstorm change the orientation of the
rotating air column from horizontal to vertical. Meteorologists can spot this
rotation on Doppler radar. Often associated with supercell thunderstorms,
mesocyclones may spawn funnel clouds, tornadoes or waterspouts. Known
for their ferocious winds, the wind speeds of the strongest tornadoes can
reach over 322 kilometers per hour (200 miles per hour), while even the
weakest tornadoes have minimum wind speeds of 105 kilometers per hour (65
miles per hour). Unlike tropical and subtropical cyclones, tornadoes most
frequently form over land. Mesocylones in general dont last nearly as long as
the other types of cyclones. A typical life cycle completes itself within a matter
of hours.
Sponsored links
DISASTER RISK MANAGEMENT

Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) aims to reduce the damage caused by

natural hazards like earthquakes, floods, droughts and cyclones, through an
ethic of prevention. Disasters often follow natural hazards. A disaster's
severity depends on how much impact a hazard has on society and the
environment.
NEW MODEL CONCEPT OF PRODCUING BIOFUEL METHODS

Biofuel is considered to be the most pure and the easiest available fuels on the planet. Also known as
agrofuel, they are classified into gas, liquid and solid form derived from biomass. Most of the people
would be very happy to know that most of the forms of biofuels can be easily manufactured even at in
one's kitchen garden. One of the key features of biofuels is that they are better than other forms of fuels
like petrol or diesel that is manufactured by most of the big oil manufacturing companies. Most of the
diesel engines would work more efficiently and even last longer with the use of these home made
biofuels. These fuels are also very clean and environment friendly. These biofuels can be a lot more
economic if used in the kitchen for cooking purpose. These fuels also encourage the recycling process as
most of them are manufactured from waste products.

There are various forms of biofuels and most of them are made through a detailed process having various
stages. Most of the animal fats, vegetables and oils contain glycerin and are thus called triglycerides. In
the process of manufacturing the biofuels, all the fats and oils are turned into esters, separating the
glycerin. At the end of the process, all the glycerin sinks down at the bottom and all the biofuel rests at the
top. The process through which the glycerin is separated from the biodiesel is known as
transesterification. This process also uses lye as a catalyst in the whole process. Some of the chemicals
which are used in the manufacturing of biofuels are ethanol or methanol which brings into use methyl
esters. Methanol is derived from fossil fuels while ethanol is derived from plants. One of the advantages
of using ethanol is that they can be distilled even at the home without any problem.

The process of manufacturing biofuel can be classified in the following stages. These stages are:

Filtering: In this process, waste vegetable oil is filtered to remove all the food particles. This process
generally involves warming up the liquid a little. After warming up the liquid, it can be filtered with the use
of coffee filter.
 Removing of water: All the water contained in the residual gangue has to be removed which will make the
reaction faster. The water can be easily removed by making the liquid boil at 100 degree C for sometime.

Titration: This process is carried out to determine the amount of lye that would be required. This process
is the most crucial and the most important stage of biofuel manufacturing.

Preparation of sodium methoxide: In this process, methanol is mixed with sodium hydroxide to produce
sodium methoxide. In most of the cases, the quantity of methanol used is generally 20 percent of waste
vegetable oil.

Heating and mixing: The residue is heated in between 120 to 130 degree F after which it is mixed well. It
should be remembered that process should be done carefully avoiding splashing of the liquid.

Settling and separation: After mixing the liquid, it has to be allowed to cool down. After the cooling
process, the biofuel will be found floating at the top while the heavier glycerin would be found at the
bottom. The glycerin can be easily separated by allowing it to drain out from the bottom. The person is left
over with pure biofuel which can be used for various purposes

FOOD DETERIORAGE

Spoilage is the process in which food deteriorates to the point in which it is

not edible to humans or its quality of edibility becomes reduced. Various
external forces are responsible for the spoilage of food. Food that is capable
of spoiling is referred to as perishable food.

Major causes of food deterioration include the following:

growth and activities of micro-organisms, principally bacteria, yeasts
and moulds;
activities of natural food enzymes;
insects, parasites and rodents;
temperature, both heat and cold;
moisture and dryness;
air and in particular oxygen;
light;
time.

Fiber optics
A fiber optic cable is a network cable that contains strands of glass fibers
inside an insulated casing. They're designed for long distance, very high
performance data networking and telecommunications.

Compared to wired cables, fiber optic cables provide higher bandwidth and
can transmit data over longer distances.

Fiber optic cables support much of the world's internet, cable television and
telephone systems.

Advantages of Fiber Optic Cables

Fiber cables offer several advantages over traditional long-distance copper
cabling.

Fiber optics have a higher capacity. The amount of network bandwidth a

fiber cable can carry easily exceeds that of a copper cable with similar
thickness. Fiber cables rated at 10 Gbps, 40 Gbps and even 100 Gbps
are standard.

Since light can travel much longer distances down a fiber cable without
losing its strength, it lessens the need for signal boosters.

Fiber is less susceptible to interference. A traditional network cable

requires special shielding to protect it from electromagnetic interference.
While this shielding helps, it is not sufficient to prevent interference
when many cables are strung together in close proximity to each other.
The physical properties of glass and fiber cables avoid most of these
issues.

Artificla intelligence
1. the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks normally
requiring human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-
making, and translation between languages.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is usually defined as the science of making computers do
things that require intelligence when done by humans. (Jack Copeland, 2000)

Current Benefits of AI
Replicate decisions and actions of humans without human shortcomings.
Computers dont get fatigued and tired.
Computers are not biased by emotions.
Tasks are scalable and can be done very quickly and effectively.

Current Dangers of AI
Some decisions require a level of grey area.
Replacing jobs and roles done by humans leading to higher level of
unemployment and poverty.
Viruses and bugs in code leading to catastrophic circumstances such as
accidents with self driving cars and in aviation systems.

Vog occurs due to volcanic activity. When a volcano erupts, or begins to erupt, it
releases sulfur dioxide which then reacts with the other gases that are already in
the air. This results in fog called vog. Also, when lava reaches the sea, it also reacts
with the water to produce other chemicals like hydrogen sulfide. This also results
in vog. This can cause reduced visibility to adding a mild, blue-grey tint to the
landscape.

FOG
When warm water in the air cools quickly, the droplets change from invisible to
visible. This is called fog. The condition is called being foggy if you are not being
able to see more than 1,000 meters in terms of airline industry and more than 200
meters in terms of civilian.
There are different types of fog like radiation fog, valley fog, upslope flog, coastal
fog, etc.

The international definition of fog is a visibility of less than 1 kilometer (3,300 ft); mist is a
visibility of between 1 kilometer (0.62 mi) and 2 kilometers (1.2 mi) and haze from 2
kilometers (1.2 mi) to 5 kilometers (3.1 mi).
Mist and fog both occur when there are water droplets in the air. When warm
water in the air cools quickly, the droplets change from invisible to visible.
When it comes to the airline industrys definition of fog, they use the guidelines
of not being able to see more than 1,000 meters (3,280 ft), although the
civilian definition of fog is when visibility is less than 200 meters (650 ft). That
might not sound like much, but when it comes to your morning commute, a
visibility of only 50 meters (165 ft) will slow everyone down enough to cause
major delays

SMOG

The term smog was first coined in the early 20th century in London to
describe the low-hanging pollution that covered the city. Smog is the stuff that
will make you cough and burn your eyesthats because its majorly made up
of ozone. When certain pollutants enter the airlike nitrogen oxidesthey
react with the sunlight to form ozone. Its a good thing when its high up in the
atmosphere, but not so good when were breathing it. It can cause everything
from eye irritation to chronic asthma and can also severely impact the
productivity of agricultural areas