Why do hurricanes turn? Understanding their movements as Atlantic hurricane season picks up

CBS News

3 days ago

Hurricanes are the most powerful storms on Earth, but are often steered around the globe by just a gentle breeze.
A hurricane is a spinning area of low pressure over warm ocean waters featuring powerful sustained winds of at least 74 miles per hour. The strongest hurricanes can contain winds of over 200 miles per hour and generate as much energy as thousands of nuclear bombs.
Though winds inside of a hurricane rotate violently, much lighter winds surrounding the storm dictate their forward motion and direction.
Trade winds are areas of wind in different parts of the world that blow reliably from one direction due to the Earth's rotation. Over the tropical latitudes of the Atlantic Ocean, where most hurricanes that go on to affect the United States develop, the trade winds blow from east to west.
As hurricanes move westward and approach the Caribbean and U.S., a large high pressure system off the East Coast typically becomes a dominant factor in where the storm goes.
Due to its geographic location, this area of high pressure is called the Bermuda High. If the Bermuda High is closer to the U.S., storms continue their westward or northwestward motion and frequently make landfall along U.S. coastline. When the Bermuda High is farther out to sea, the storms often bend northward before hitting the coastline.
The Bermuda High, cold fronts, and other high and low pressure systems that steer hurricanes vary in their position and strength throughout hurricane season, leading to different average storm tracks in June versus November.