Where do hurricanes occur?
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Hurricane is the term used to describe large tropical storms with sustained winds of at least 74 mph that occur in the eastern North Pacific and North Atlantic Oceans. Cyclone is the term applied to similar storms in the Indian Ocean and South Pacific Ocean. Typhoons are similar storms that occur in the western North Pacific Ocean. |
Image courtesy of NOAA
South Atlantic Ocean hurricanes are so rare that they are said to never happen. However, a hurricane-like storm hit the coast of Brazil March 28, 2004. At the time the nature of the storm was hotly debated because of it's location. Eventually it was unofficially named Catarina after the location in Brazil where it made landfall. Because of the rarity of this type of storm in the South Atlantic Ocean, there are no monitoring stations in Brazil. Most of storm data came from NASA remote sensing technology.
Read about this surprise storm and the NASA technology that documented it.