Hurricanes in Your Backyard?
Hook | Questions | Procedures | Data Investigation | Analysis | New Questions
Student Page
by Jean Jolley
The Hook
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hurricane song
Could a hurricane ever make a direct hit on San Diego? You may be surprised to learn that a tropical storm hit Southern California in 1939. Tropical depression Olivia was one of the costliest natural disasters to strike Southern California in 1982.
Questions
The big question: Could a hurricane ever make a direct hit on Southern California?
1. Students will investigate how hurricanes form and what hurricanes need for fuel.
2. Students will discuss the factors that affect a hurricane's power, direction, and speed.
3. Students will investigate previous "close calls."
4. Students will predict what factors are needed for a hurricane to hit Southern California.
Procedure
After students have asked questions related to the topic, they will need to decide a number of things, including:
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Type(s) of data needed to answer the questions
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Defining important terms
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Choosing tools for data manipulation
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Defining how data will be manipulated and presented
Types of Data:
Students may not realize what kind of data they need. On the National Hurricane Center website, there are many data that a student can look at. Specifically, tracking maps and tracking data that show all the Pacific hurricanes from history. When meteorologists track hurricanes, they keep records on pressure, wind speed, latitude, longitude and exact times and dates.
Students will also need to find information on average ocean temperatures. Through their research, students will discover that warm water is hurricane "fuel." So it is important that students discover where warm water exists in the Pacific. Numerical data is not important here. A color coded map will give a visual view of where the warm spots are.
Defining important terms:
Eastern Pacific, pressure, hurricane categories, how hurricanes are defined, tropical storm, tropical depression. There are probably more important terms than this, but this project is dynamic and interactive. If students find more terms they feel are important, they can add them to the list.
Investigation tools:
Some data will be numerical and some will be visual. Students must obviously have internet access to find the data they need. In addition, spreadsheets are helpful for creating visual representations of the numerical data.
Manipulating data:
Students should create spreadsheets and charts for several hurricanes. By graphing the wind speed versus latitude, students will find that at a certain latitude hurricanes lose their power. This is related to ocean temperatures. Compare the graph with maps of ocean temperature to see the connection. An example is provided below.
Data investigation
Here are websites that will be helpful in finding the necessary data.
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/1997epac.html
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pastall.shtml
www.google.com search images for maps of Pacific Ocean temperatures, searching specifically for the Eastern Pacific is also helpful
Analysis
This is raw hurricane data from the Pacific Hurricane Center website. Students only need to use the latitude and wind speed in their graphs, although the rest of these data are interesting to look at too. By making a graph, students can get a better view of what the trends are.
| Hurricane Marty 18-24 September 2003 | |||||
| Date | Latitude | Longitude | Pressure | Wind speed | Stage |
| 18 / 1800 | 16.5 | 105.7 | 1004 | 25 | tropical depression |
| 19 / 0000 | 16.8 | 106.3 | 1002 | 30 | " |
| 19 / 0600 | 16.9 | 106.8 | 1000 | 35 | tropical storm |
| 19 / 1200 | 17.1 | 107.1 | 999 | 35 | " |
| 19 / 1800 | 17.3 | 107.2 | 998 | 40 | " |
| 20 / 0000 | 17.5 | 107.3 | 998 | 40 | " |
| 20 / 0600 | 17.7 | 107.5 | 997 | 45 | " |
| 20 / 1200 | 18 | 107.9 | 997 | 45 | " |
| 20 / 1800 | 18.3 | 108.3 | 994 | 55 | " |
| 21 / 0000 | 18.6 | 108.6 | 987 | 65 | hurricane |
| 21 / 0600 | 18.9 | 108.8 | 987 | 65 | " |
| 21 / 1200 | 19.3 | 109.1 | 987 | 65 | " |
| 21 / 1800 | 20.1 | 109.4 | 987 | 65 | " |
| 22 / 0000 | 21 | 109.5 | 980 | 75 | " |
| 22 / 0600 | 22 | 109.6 | 970 | 85 | " |
| 22 / 1200 | 23.7 | 109.9 | 971 | 80 | " |
| 22 / 1800 | 25.4 | 110.8 | 980 | 70 | " |
| 23 / 0000 | 27 | 111.8 | 985 | 60 | tropical storm |
| 23 / 0600 | 28.3 | 112.5 | 993 | 50 | " |
| 23 / 1200 | 29.4 | 113.2 | 999 | 35 | " |
| 23 / 1800 | 29.9 | 113.5 | 1002 | 30 | tropical depression |
| 24 / 0000 | 30.5 | 113.7 | 1003 | 30 | " |
| 24 / 0600 | 30.8 | 113.5 | 1004 | 30 | " |
| 24 / 1200 | 31.1 | 113.3 | 1007 | 25 | " |
| 24 / 1800 | 31.5 | 113.6 | 1007 | 20 | " |
| 25 / 0000 | 31.5 | 114.1 | 1007 | 20 | remnant low |
| 25 / 0600 | 31.1 | 114.2 | 1008 | 20 | " |
| 25 / 1200 | 30.7 | 114.3 | 1010 | 20 | " |
| 25 / 1800 | 30.2 | 114.5 | 1012 | 20 | " |
| 26 / 0000 | 29.9 | 114.7 | 1012 | 20 | " |
| 26 / 0600 | dissipated | ||||
| 22 / 0930 | 23 | 109.7 | 970 | 85 | landfall near San Jose del Cabo |
The above graph shows really well the relationship between latitude and wind speed. After graphing, add a trendline. All the graphs will not look like the one above. Some have lumps and bumps. Make sure students know the important aspect is that when the hurricane reaches higher latitudes, the water temperature decreases and the hurricane speed decreases.
Next students will investigate ocean temperatures.
New Questions
Students may be interested in making similar graphs for other parts of the world. For instance, the Atlantic hurricane season or Western Pacific. Students can also download and print blank tracking maps that they can use to track the current year's hurricanes. Students may also wish to research the 1939 tropical storm to learn about its effects, damage, loss of life, etc.