It is this difference in air pressure that allows the wind to spiral inward towards the center. They also need a moist environment and non-shearing winds in the upper atmosphere so that the hurricane can grow vertically. Hurricanes typically move in a course around the Bermuda High, a large high pressure system typical for the mid-atlantic region.
Some hurricanes move on erratic paths and can be difficult to forecast.
We'll look at several different types of paths that hurricanes take and examine the ones most likely to bring worst case conditions to our area. We name hurricanes to keep track of which one is which. Common sense, really. We began officially naming tropical storms and hurricanes in 1953. Simply put, storm surge is an abnormal rise in sea level accompanying a hurricane or other intense storm, and whose height is the difference between the observed level of the sea surface and the level that would have occurred in the absence of the cyclone.