The hurricane will soon weaken, specialists reassure

Aug 9, 2013 20:26 GMT  ·  By

Hurricane Henriette, now traveling across the Pacific Ocean, packs thunderstorms measuring up to 10 miles (16 kilometers) in height, information collected by NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite says.

Specialists explain that, although impressive to say the least, 10-mile-high thunderstorm clouds are actually typical for such strong natural phenomena.

More precisely, it appears that, the stronger a storm is, the higher its clouds extend into the atmosphere, Live Science reports.

By the looks of it, these very high clouds are the ones responsible for dropping whopping amounts of rain.

In fact, researchers estimate that, for the time being, the thunderstorms trailing hurricane Henriette are releasing rainfall of about 2.2 inches (5.5 centimeters) per hour.

Scientists explain that, because they generate loads of intense latent heat as a result of water condensation, tall thunderclouds such as the ones trailing hurricane Henriette are often referred to as “hot towers.”

Once the hurricane begins to weaken, rainfall will subside and the thunderstorms will also diminish. Scientists at the National Hurricane Center in Miami expect that it will not be long until this happens.

Specialists in charge of keeping a close eye on the hurricane maintain that, despite having reached Category 2 status, Henriette does not constitute a threat.

This is because it is currently located at a considerable distance from any shorelines, and its predicted trajectory indicates that it will not make landfall.

Thus, Hurricane Henriette is now roughly 1,100 miles (1,780 kilometers) away from Hilo, Hawaii, and appears to be moving westward.

According to the same source, hurricane Henriette was “born” on August 3, and started out as a tropical depression in the Eastern Pacific Ocean.

Later on, it developed into a tropical storm and, after gaining a lot more strength, it turned into a full-blown hurricane.

Throughout the past few weeks, the Eastern Pacific Ocean has spawned many storms. The Atlantic basin has been fairly calm, but researchers suspect that storm activity in this region will soon pick up the pace.