Storms, Typhoons, Cyclones, Hurricanes, Tornedos ... anything else ?

Seriously, this business of storm-classification based on many facts and figures looks quite obscure till you actually make an attempt to know about it. After I heard about the Hurricane Katrina hitting New Orleans, I wanted to know more about these beasts .. about their power of such mass distruction .. about their origins .... So, I went on hunting for information about storms and here's what I've got -

Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory FAQ webpage

This AOML FAQ webpage tells you everything you ever wanted to know about storms, their types, classification etc. You name it and it's there.





The Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) is one of the Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) Facilities of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). NOAA/AOML is a part of the US Department of Commerce (DOC) and is located in Miami, Florida. AOML's mission is to conduct basic and applied research in oceanography, tropical meteorology, atmospheric and oceanic chemistry, and acoustics. The research seeks to understand the physical characteristics and processes of the ocean and the atmosphere, both separately and as a coupled system.

If you wanna know about the names for hurricanes and their other family members, visit this page on National Hurricane Center website.

If you want to know more about the upcoming storm events in the yaer 2005, then National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration's (U.S. Department of Commerce) Satellite and Information Service webpage has all of them lined with satellite imagaries.

Take a look at this informative page on Cyclones by Wikipedia.






And this is what Indian Government offers its citizens, just in case they want to know more about natural disasters and precautionary measures to be taken -

Ministry of Home Affairs' National Disaster Management website.

This site mostly stresses on the earthquakes and floods more than anything else, but then, those are the most predominent natural calamities in India than cyclones or typhoons. The actual implimentation of National Disaster Management plan by Indian government is an unresolved mystery, perceived by none !

But, there's another side to all this storm business. Some brilliant people have made quite some buck out of chasing these beasts - the storm chasers. There are about 1,16,000 search results that appear on Google when you type these two words "Storm Chasers". If you don't believe, then just click on that phrase and see it yourself. I was blown away when I saw the very first result that appeared; an official world homepage of storm chasers ??!! It's really maddening to read and see the kinda stuff these crazy people do ! .... I mean, come on ! .. chasing cyclones for adventure and fun .... are you out of your mind dude ? But again there are all kinds of people in this world ! and then there are "Storm chase ethics" by Alan Moller .... is it already a registered profession or something ?

This post is a result of my love for collecting information about random things. I've always been a collector ... be it coins or cricketers' photos or stamps or even newspaper clippings ... I've done all those collections with all my heart and passion .. and now when I think of it .. it's fun too ! This is also a part of one of those collections ... a collection of thoughts ... of ramblings.

So far so good.

@mar.