How Storms Spin: teacher key

Hurricanes and Tornadoes, grade 8 edition, written for 8th grade. What makes a hurricane turn, and what makes a tornado? Follow the heat, the rotating air and the instruments to see how scientists explain each storm.

Read the book. Print this page for the key.

Questions and answers

1. What does water vapor release when it condenses, powering a hurricane?
   • Latent heat (answer)
   • Cold air
   • Salt
2. What is a mesocyclone?
   • A hurricane's eye
   • Rotation inside a supercell that Doppler radar detects (answer)
   • A kind of balloon
3. Where do tornadoes spawned by a hurricane most often form?
   • In the eye
   • Over cold water
   • In the right-front part (answer)
4. Why are Enhanced Fujita wind speeds called estimates?
   • They come from the eye
   • They come from damage, not direct measurement (answer)
   • They are random
5. A hurricane moves over land, where little water evaporates. What is likely to happen to it?
   • It weakens (answer)
   • It gets more powerful
   • It becomes a tornado

Words

• latent: hidden
• Coriolis: spin effect
• mesocyclone: rotating updraft
• waterspout: tornado over water
• radiosonde: balloon instrument
• deflection: a bend