document: The names will be different , but more hurricanes with the powerful punches of Hugo and Gilbert may be prowling the Atlantic , Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico in the future . `` The probability of more intense hurricanes in the Atlantic region is greater in the next decade or two than it has been in the 1970s and '80s , '' says meteorologist William M. Gray of Colorado State University , who analyzes hurricane patterns . Gray predicts a possible return of the more ferocious hurricanes of the '50s and '60s , because of an apparent break in the periodic West African drought . Rainfall in the Sahel , typically associated with more intense hurricane activity , was above average in 1988 for the first time since 1969 , he says . A second rainy summer this year indicates an end to the drought . The most intense hurricanes , Gray explains , usually form at low latitudes from tropical disturbances moving westward from Africa . The well-watered conditions in the '50s and '60s produced 31 of the most severe kind -LRB- categories 4 and 5 -RRB- in the 17-year period 1950 to 1967 . Hurricanes are classified by the Saffir-Simpson scale , the fiercest a No. 5 , or catastrophic storm . The atmospheric pressure at its center drops drastically and its wind speed exceeds 155 m.p.h. . In the drier 17-year period of 1970 to 1987 , there were only 13 severe storms . In the '88 and '89 seasons -- June through November -- there have been five . Last year 's Gilbert , which left a wide swath of devastation across Jamaica and the Mexican Yucatan , was the mightiest hurricane on record in the Western Hemisphere . Its atmospheric pressure dropped to 885 millibars and its wind speed reached 200 m.p.h. . This September 's Hugo , which ripped through the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico before clobbering South Carolina , had sustained winds of 150 m.p.h. and an atmospheric pressure of 918 millibars -LRB- 27.1 inches -RRB- . Officially a 4 on the Saffir-Simpson scale , it `` may be a borderline 5 , '' says meteorologist Mark Zimmer of the National Hurricane Center in Miami . The strongest recorded storm on Earth , Zimmer says , was 1979 Typhoon Tip in the western Pacific , with a low pressure of 870 millibars . Outside the Atlantic area and the eastern Pacific , hurricanes are called typhoons or cyclones . Fortunately , most Atlantic-region hurricanes do not develop to their worst potential . In this century , only two No. 5 hurricanes have struck the United States with full force , the 1935 Labor Day storm that ravaged the Florida Keys and 1969 's Camille , which slammed ashore at Mississippi and Louisiana . In 1980 , Allen , the mightiest Caribbean storm then recorded , had lost much of its punch before it hit the Gulf Coast of Texas . `` If the future is like the past with its pattern of atmospheric conditions , there is a good probability of the return of stronger storms , '' Gray said . But in the 1990s , he warns , U.S. destruction will be at least four to five times more costly than in the '50s and '60s , because of the boom in population and property development along coastal areas . The threat of global warming also portends hurricanes more powerful than any yet recorded , says meteorologist Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . Hurricanes are like huge , self-sustaining heat engines spinning across the sea . They get their power from the water 's warmth . To develop , they need tropical ocean-surface temperatures of about 80 degrees Fahrenheit . `` If tropical ocean temperatures go up , the intensity of hurricanes will , '' Emanuel explains . `` Sea-surface temperatures set the upper limits . '' The biggest uncertainty , he says , is whether global warming will affect tropical ocean temperatures . The gradual warming of the Earth results from the greenhouse effect , caused primarily by the accumulation of carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere , which , like the glass of a greenhouse , trap heat .
extractive_keyphrases: intense hurricanes atlantic region hurricane patterns ferocious hurricanes catastrophic storm atmospheric conditions
abstractive_keyphrases: meteorologist william gray