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Pawneewafflesarelife t1_j32m26l wrote

Thought cyclones were called hurricanes in USA?

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bazz_and_yellow t1_j32qvly wrote

Cyclones are just intense weather events. I think you are confusing typhoons vs hurricanes.

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ImperialRedditer t1_j332twy wrote

Some parts of the world (Southern Hemisphere and Indian Ocean) also call tropical cyclones cyclones.

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Pawneewafflesarelife t1_j3air3z wrote

I was going off this Wikipedia article:

>In the Atlantic and the northeastern Pacific oceans, a tropical cyclone is generally referred to as a hurricane (from the name of the ancient Central American deity of wind, Huracan), in the Indian and south Pacific oceans it is called a cyclone, and in the northwestern Pacific it is called a typhoon.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone

I'm still fuzzy on the terms - moved to Australia and they are different from the terms I learned in the states.

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fliptout t1_j32q92k wrote

This was definitely not anywhere near a hurricane. Sustained winds of 20-30mph with gusts up to 50--and those probably on mountain peaks.

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FauxShizzle t1_j32sxnj wrote

Gusts of 90 in the peaks in the bay area, 50 mph wind above 1000 ft. Still not a hurricane but not something to fuck around in.

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[deleted] t1_j33i8nq wrote

[removed]

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FauxShizzle t1_j33ii5a wrote

LA county alone has 9.83 million people in it, almost the population of all of Michigan. The logistics of dealing with unexpected weather events is difficult to compare between the two regions.

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Jbow89 t1_j33ewdk wrote

I always thought they were called hurricanes if they were in the Atlantic Ocean and cyclones in the Pacific Ocean.

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FifteenthPen t1_j33j4ux wrote

It's more complicated than that, and mostly has to do with what people in a given region usually call them. Storms in the Atlantic and northeast Pacific (headed for North America or Europe) are hurricanes, storms in the west Pacific and east Indian Ocean (headed for east/southeast Asia) are typhoons, and storms in the south Pacific and west Indian Ocean (headed for Australia, the Middle East, or east Africa) are called cyclones.

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ParticularRiver8064 t1_j33l6l9 wrote

What you are referring to are tropical cyclones. They are called typhoons in the Pacific Ocean in the northern hemisphere, and hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean. They also have other names in other areas of the Southern Hemisphere, like tropical cyclone in Australia.

Though what you see impacting California is an extratropical cyclone. Extratropical refers to how they usually form outside the tropics in the extratropical regions of earth. They are very common but can range wildly in intensity.

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