Severe Weather in Myanmar

1 How tornadoes form:

Tornadoes start out with a horizontal mass of air rotating over a flat surface. When thunderstorms are nearby they have large updrafts causing the horizontal rotating airmass to be come vertical. Once vertical the airmass forms a mesocyclone in the thunderstorm, the rotating becomes stronger it starts to move towards the lower part of the cloud. Once the mesocyclone touches the ground it is known as a tornado. In the US tornadoes generally travel from Southwest to NorthEast due to the Westerlies. Very occasionally Myanmar will experience a tornado but there have been no massive ones recently. The US on the other hand experiences an average of 1,252 tornadoes per year. I was unable to find an average amount for Myanmar as I have only been able to find two on record. Myanmar is quite near a tornado hot spot but just far enough away to experience very few near India and Tibet.

• http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/climate-information/extreme-events/us-tornado-climatology
•  http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/storm/tornadoes-asia.htm

2 Hurricanes :
For Hurricanes to form they require pretty specific conditions. To start there needs to be a lot of humidity in the air. Along with high humidity there also need to be consistent heating of the surface it forms over; so basically water that is consistently above 80 degrees fahrenheit. The last thing hurricanes need to form are cumulus and cumulonimbus clouds. Hurricanes mainly above and bellow the equator. They are called hurricanes if they form in the East Pacific and Atlantic. If they form in the Indian ocean and near Australia they are considered Cyclones; and if the form in the third main region near China and Indonesia they are labeled as Typhoons. When hurricanes form near the US they generally travel from Florida up towards New York in a C direction path, making their way back towards Europe. On average around 10 hurricanes hit the US each year with only around 2 becoming major storms. Myanmar has a more active hurricane zone with around 20 occurring per year.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_cyclone_basins#North_Indian_Ocean
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_hurricane_season