They are creatures of tropical seas, sweeping up heat laden waters, converting it to wind,

Why do a rare few evolve into colossal monsters that leave in their wake a trail of destruction,

Do we now face a rising tide of Super Hurricanes and Typhoons?

For millennia, we saw the oceans as mysterious wellsprings of natureÕs power.

In William ShakespeareÕs drama, The Tempest, a shipÕs crew faces a sudden maelstrom, as

dramatized in the 2010 Julie Taymor film. Unknown to the crew, the storm was conjured

The  story is said to have been inspired by a storm that sent the English flagship Sea Venture

ItÕs now one of many shipwrecks that litter tropical sea bottoms.

So too, the history books are filled with stories of cities and towns caught off guard

by the sudden onrush of a tropical storm.

Among the worst, Galveston, Texas, September 1900.

With swells beginning to rise on September 7th, officials issued a hurricane warning.

A ship at sea estimated the winds in the approaching storm at 100 miles, or 160 kilometers, per

As powerful as the storm was, little was known about it, including where it would hit and

By 5:00 PM, hurricane force winds began to pound the beaches of Galveston.

By the time the hurricane came ashore that evening, its winds had risen to 217 kilometers

per hourÉ a category four on todayÕs five-point Saffir-Simpson scale.

In what is still to this day the deadliest natural disaster in American history, 8,000

lives, 20% of the islandÕs population, were lost.

The city of Galveston was reduced to rubble by wind-driven waves and tides, called storm

Hurricanes, also called cyclones or typhoons, are giant rotating storms that feed on solar

A rare few, like the one that hit Galveston, go beyond the norm, to marshal the extreme

In 1969, weather satellites showed hurricane Camille bearing down on the Mississippi coast.

ItÕs now six-thirty pm in Biloxi, Mississippi and the hurricane is really beginning to be

felt here. As you can see the palm trees are blowing, the rain is beginning to increase,

and the sea is beginning to churn in the Gulf. It promises to be a long, long night in Biloxi.

The storm intensified suddenly as it hit land with category five winds of over 300 kilometers

per hour, and a storm surge that reached 8 meters high.

Camille wrecked the coastline and drowned 143.

Sweeping inland, it brought floods to the mountains of Virginia that killed another

Ironically, just as Camille headed for landfall, scientists flew out to Hurricane Debbie to

perform the last in a series of experiments designed to bend back NatureÕs power.

The idea of the project, called Stormfury, was to load up an airplane with silver iodide

Flying around the periphery of a storm, they would spread the crystals around in hopes

of stimulating new cloud formation, and in so doing steal the energy flowing into the

We now see hurricanes, typhoons, and cyclones as the product of climate systems on a much

larger scale, water and wind, oceans and land.

They are fueled by heat from the sun, captured and stored in the upper layer of tropical

The deeper and warmer this upper layer becomes, the stronger and longer lasting a hurricane

In the Atlantic ocean, they often begin their lives over mountains in East Africa.

As the wind sweeps over them, an area of low pressure forms. It tavels across the Sahara

Desert, then moves out over the warm Atlantic.

There, it can spawn thunderstorms over a broad region.

As the low gradually comes under the influence of the EarthÕs rotation, called the coriolis

As the storm intensifies, the pressure in its center continues to drop, forming whatÕs

It acts like a partial vacuum, causing winds at the sea surface to spiral inward toward

These in-spiraling winds evaporate moisture from the warm ocean surface. As they near

the eye, they veer upward, producing clouds and rain.

Much of this air moves outward at the top of the storm, like a chimney. Some flows back

down into the center, causing the eye to dry out and become clear.

The path a hurricane takes, and the intensity it reaches, are determined by its interaction

with global weather systems and ocean currents.

In most cases, they form in vast ocean areas along the equator, pushed along by equatorial

At higher latitudes, to the north and south, east-bound winds circle the globe.

Where they converge in the tropics, the flow shifts to the west, forming the trade winds

and a band of precipitation called the Intertropical Convergence Zone.

Stretching all around the Earth, this is the breeding ground for countless thunderstorms

The moisture they stir up often flows toward the poles, drawn by great spiraling weather

When the tropics flare up, a fleet of satellites monitors the activity and sends down a wealth

of data about the state of the oceans and the atmosphere.

Meteorologists tap into a network of buoys and ship reports to monitor ocean temperatures,

wind, and wave heights, on the hunt for conditions that favor hurricane development.

From all this data, meteorologists have improved their ability to forecast the twists and turns

As a result, few are caught by surprise, from shipping companies to coastal businesses,

local and state governments, and the public at large.

And yet the challenge of protecting life and property is only getting worse.

Lately, scientists have been computing the risks, and running the probabilities, of a

terrible growing conflict between humans and nature.

Quite simply, more and more people are moving to coastlines around the world, drawn by a

In the United States, for example, 39% of the population lives in coastal counties.

A Columbia University report takes a global look at this trend by identifying major disaster

Bangladesh. The Philippines. The east coast of China. The east coast of North America.

To make matters worse, the oceans have gotten steadily warmer over the last few decades,

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