This tropical depression can develop into a tropical storm, after which it may graduate into a hurricane. Wednesday One of the factors that determines how many hurricanes happen in a given year is a natural force called the conveyor effect, which carries warm Atlantic waters north from near the Caribbean to an area east of Greenland. There, the current sinks deep, moves south, and flows into the southern Atlantic Ocean and beyond. By the time it makes landfall, a hurricane contains lots of moisture, which it unloads in the form of torrential rains lasting for hours. The hurricane weakens as it moves over land because it is cut off from the warm ocean waters that feed it.
Friction caused by the rougher land surface also slows the winds down.
Hurricanes are usually downgraded to tropical storm status by the time they reach out neck of the woods. Thursday When a hurricane bears down on the Atlantic coast, radar systems, satellites, and aircraft give us a steady stream of information about the exact position and severity of the storm. Forecasters have some idea of when and where the storm may make landfall. But it wasn't always that way. Without modern forecasting tools, residents of New England were taken by surprise by the infamous 1938 hurricane which claimed the lives of 60 people.