Introduction to Tropical cyclones

1. What am I?
Hold up your whiteboard with your guess
• You’ll know I’m coming up to a week before I arrive
• I’m powered by the sun
• I have many names, but you’ve probably never met me
• Land is the only thing that can stop me
• I can destroy most things
• I’m a killer; I can crush you, drown you, and make you sick
• I can be hundreds of miles across
• I can be more powerful than a nuclear bomb
• …

2. I’m a Tropical Cyclone
(also known as a typhoon or hurricane)
Hurricane Maria, 2017. About 900 miles across.

3. Tropical
cyclones

4. Word cloud
Give me synonyms and descriptive words
Tropical
Steamy, hot, equatorial, sweaty, sticky, close.
Cyclone
Twister, whirlwind, storm, typhoon, hurricane.

5. What’s a tropical cyclone like?
What kind of storm is a tropical cyclone?
 Organise yourselves into groups
 Each person in each group has to complete their own sheet
 One person at a time can come and read the information I have,
then must get back to the group and share it.
 I’ll give you a warning 2 turns before your time is up.
 If you don’t finish, it’s extra homework, so concentrate!

6. What’s a tropical cyclone like?
What kind of storm is a tropical cyclone?
Task - complete your infographic poster

7. What did you call me?!
How we name tropical cyclones
(in 2 minutes)

8. What did you call me?!
 Every tropical cyclone has a name.
 For many storms a list of names is written every year from
A to Z.
 The names are used in alphabetical order as storms
happen. Hurricane names for 2019 include Barry, Imedla
and Rebekah. Typhoon names include Nari, Lekima and
Faxai.
 If a storm is kills or hurts a lot of people its name is never
used again (e.g. Katrina, Harvey)

9. What did you call me?!
 A tropical cyclone is called a hurricane if it forms in the Atlantic
or north-east Pacific.
 In the north-west Pacific it would be called a 'typhoon’,
 Everywhere else it would simply be called a 'cyclone’.

10. What did you call me?!
To make things easier to remember,
we’ve made a summary sheet with
everything on it.
Unfortunately, due to a mix-up each
of your handouts is missing some
information.

11. What did you call me?!
Task: Complete your summary sheet
 Between all of you, I’m sure you have all the answers!
 You need to work together to get them all on your own
sheet.
 Find people with your missing information and swap info.
 Ready?
Go Go Go!
The clock is ticking!

12. What did you call me?!
Time’s up!
How did we do?

13. Checking in
True? Or false?
 1-10 in the back of your books
 5 seconds thinking time per question

14. True or false?
1/10
If a storm isn’t spinning, it can’t
be a tropical cyclone

15. True or false?
2/10
A tropical cyclone will always
have a name

16. True or false?
3/10
A tropical cyclone can form over
land

17. True or false?
4/10
The name for hot air rising is
‘convection’.

18. True or false?
5/10
A tropical cyclone will have
winds of at least 74mph.

19. True or false?
6/10
A tropical cyclone can only form
over water that is 26
o
C or
warmer

20. True or false?
7/10
A tropical cyclone would spin
clockwise in the North Atlantic

21. True or false?
8/10
A tropical cyclone could form in
the Arctic Ocean

22. True or false?
9/10
A tropical cyclone near Japan
would be called a hurricane.

23. True or false?
10/10
Tropical cyclones can happen in
any month of the year

24. How did you do?
Q1,2,4,5,10 – True
Q3,7,8,9 - False
<5 The leaves barely rustle
6-8 Getting pretty breezy
9+ Blown away!