Sorting out the storms

It is the summer season of high winds and torrential rain, a hot-weather occurrence that sweeps across half the northern hemisphere. Liu Yujie explains the complicated nomenclature.

Many around the world may have experienced typhoons, hurricanes or cyclones - or at least know of them from news, films and books. These are destructive natural forces that, when occurring at sea, cause large waves, heavy rain, and high winds, disrupting international shipping and sometimes causing shipwrecks. When they hit land, they damage or destroy vehicles, buildings and bridges - and transform loose debris into deadly projectiles.

These intense weather phenomena are classified into three main groups, based on intensity: tropical depressions, tropical storms, and a third group of more intense storms, whose name depends on their location. For example, if a tropical storm in the Northwestern Pacific reaches hurricane-strength winds on the Beaufort scale, it is referred to as a "typhoon"; if a tropical storm passes the same benchmark in the Northeast Pacific Basin, or in the Atlantic, it is called a "hurricane". In the Southern Hemisphere or the Indian Ocean, storms of tropical nature are simply referred to as "cyclones".