> Over which type of geography do hurricanes begin to form?And the answer: warm water. Photo courtesy: Forbes.comHurricanes and typhoons are the same type of weatherphenomenon known as tropical cyclones. The main ingredients include apre-existing weather disturbance, warm tropical oceans, moisture, and relativelylight winds. After forming, these massive storms tend to move to the west ornorthwest.Tropical cyclones widely vary in intensity. The weakest form of cyclone is knownas a tropical depression, or a storm whose winds are less than 39 miles perhour. Once the storm reaches that benchmark, it upgrades in severity to atropical storm. One peg above that would classify it as a hurricane or typhoon(depending on where it is in the world), clocking in at over 74 mile per hourwinds. In some parts of the world, such as the South Pacific and Indian Ocean,the term "tropical cyclone" is used interchangeably regardless of severity. When a hurricane touches down on land, it can produce what's known as a stormsurge. The strong winds and currents push ashore a wall of water, which can behighly dangerous for costal communities. Depending on the intensity of the givenhurricane (storms can range from Category I, the least severe, to Category V),the storms usually entail rain bands, which are bands of stormy clouds thatextend hundreds of miles from the hurricane's eye, or epicenter, as well aswhat's called an eye wall, which is a ring of thunderstorms. All in all,hurricanes and other tropical cyclones have the potential to cause widespreaddestruction to coastal cities and towns. Did you know? You can see hurricanes from space! In fact, NASA will often use its idealvantage point to study the behavior of tropical storms and hurricanes. NASAscientists use data from satellites to learn more about the path and formationof these powerful phenomena. Learn more at NASA's Hurricanes and TropicalStormswebsite [https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hurricanes/main/index.html].