Think of a hurricane as a vast heat engine. The fuel is warm ocean water. It feeds heat and moisture into the air being sucked into the center of the storm. Some of the incoming air rises into the spiral rain bands that surround the storm's core. Towering clouds near the eye are known as the eye wall and contain the most damaging winds.
Hurricanes can develop in the Caribbean or in the central North Atlantic.
Some may even begin thousands of miles away off the northwestern coast of Africa. These storms are called Cape Verde hurricanes and are born in the moist tropical air off the coast of northwest Africa. Every two to three days, a tropical wave may begin in the trade winds blowing from the northeast off the Cape. Hurricanes generally move in a path resembling the curve of a parabola. In the northern hemisphere the storms usually travel first in a northwesterly direction and in the higher latitudes turn toward the northeast.