Whats the difference between a hurricane, typhoon, cyclone, whirlwind, tornado etc, etc?
Hurricane, Typhoon and Cyclone are all the same thing, called different names in different oceans, these are enormous tropical storm systems which last for up to a week, formed over water which move in the direction related to the coriolis force of earths rotation, its different in the North and South hemisphere. These can range in strength from pretty windy to the category 5 with 300km/ph wind which has just wacked north east Australia. Whirlwind and Tornado are the same thing, these are the small tightly formed spiral winds which can form on land or sea, which form and die very quickly and have extremely high wind speeds in the centre, these can form anywhere in theory but tend to occur mostly in particular parts of the world.
