STORMS

Storms are called different things in different places, and may change from one type of storm to another according to their wind speeds.

The term watch (a tornado watch, hurricane watch, severe thunderstorm watch) expresses the possibility that the designated threatening weather may hit a specific area. The term warning means that threatening weather is likely to affect a region. For tornadoes, warning means that one has been sighted or indicated by radar. Tornadoes are classified from F0 to F6. Tornadoes and hurricanes are both cyclones of various sizes and intensities.

Names of hurricanes and typhoons are capped:

Hurricanes Connie and Diane in 1955

Hurricane Andrew, the hurricane

but tropical storm Judith.

Use it, not he or she. Hurricanes are called typhoons in the Pacific west of the date line. In Japan, typhoons historically were numbered, although the most significant ones may also have been named:

Typhoon No. 17, or Typhoon Violet.

Since 2000, typhoons in the Northwest Pacific are named from a list compiled by nations and territories in the region. (The Philippines has a separate list for typhoon names within the Philippines.)

For definitions of terms, see a source such as Glossary of Meteorology (American Meteorological Society) or NOAA websites, such as the Hurricane Research Division.

Capitalize Category and use a numeral (1 through 5), no hyphen:

Category 5 storm

Category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane damage potential scale

(used for hurricanes by the National Weather Service in place of the Beaufort scale).

NOAA's hurricane forecasters also use this scale, which assigns storms to five categories. Category 1 is a minimum hurricane; Category 5 is the worst.

Tornadoes, blizzards, windstorms, and floods are usually not given names but are referred to by date and/or by location:

the tornado that struck Petersburg, Virginia, on August 6, 1993

the blizzard of March 13-14, 1993, that hit the eastern U.S.

the Mississippi flood, but the Great Flood of 1993