Hurricanes

I was wondering why hurricanes form. Does a tropical low naturally just grow in intensity? Also, has a hurricane ever hit Utah from the Gulf of Baja?

Marc A. **********************************************************

Marc, I'm wondering if your question is a question of why or how. I'll try to answer this as best as I can. Hurricanes start just as regular thunderstorms over the ocean. The key, is that water over the ocean is warm. Once the storms cluster together they will form a wave, which if it continues to grow will grow into a tropical depression and sometimes a hurricane.

Warm moist air over the ocean feeds the thunderstorms, and other factors like the rotation of the earth help our wave spin counter clockwise. Temperatures of the water generally are needed to be about 70 degrees F (or warmer) for hurricanes to keep growing. Other ingredients help, including weak winds higher up in the atmosphere or what we like to call wind shear. The weaker that wind shear, the better it is for the storms so they won't get ripped apart. The hurricane will contiue to move westward (Atlantic Hurricanes that is) until it either hits land or something pushes it away like a big trough of cold air or strong winds higher up tear into it.

Not all tropical lows will grow into hurricanes, you need those ingredients to make it happen. So No, not all lows are going to grow in intensity. However, with warm ocean water, weak wind shear tropical waves will intensify if they have all that energy. Also of note, slow moving hurricanes can mix up some of the cooler water below the warm water layer and actually weaken the hurricane.

Remnants of some hurricanes have found their way to Utah. Hurricane Nora in September of 1997. Near hurricane force winds were reported in Cedar City and a there was still some circulation aloft from the storm. Hurricane Isis also had some storm remains over Southern Utah in September of 2000.

Answered by KSL Meteorologist Dina Freedman.