As the East Coast braces for Hurricane Florence, some may wonder why the West Coast never sees them.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, there are two main reasons.
The first, hurricanes form in the tropics where winds tend to blow from east to west. That means storms that form in the Atlantic head straight for the American mainland. But in the Pacific, off the West Coast of the U.S., storms spin east to Asia where they form tropical cyclones. The trade winds that blow west to east create these storms that eventually make a u-turn and spin counter-clockwise back to the U.S.
The second reason we don't see hurricanes on the west coast, water temperatures. Warm water acts as jet fuel for hurricanes and warmer water exists in the Atlantic, specifically near the equator and into the Gulf of Mexico. Seawater in these areas can top 80 degrees. But the ocean temperature in the Pacific is usually under 75 degrees, even around 60 degrees in the upper northwest.
There is no record of tropical hurricanes ever hitting the West Coast.
