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Mystery #2Tier 2weather / storms / oceans

How does a hurricane grow into a storm hundreds of miles wide?

A hurricane can be wider than some whole countries, with enough power to flatten forests and shove the sea up onto the land. Storms like this only ever grow over warm tropical oceans, never over cold seas or dry deserts. Something about that warm water lets the storm balloon up to a monster size. What is the ocean giving it?

Hurricane Isabel photographed from the International Space Station: a vast spiral of white cloud filling the view, with a clear round eye at its centre.
Photo: Mike Trenchard, Earth Sciences & Image Analysis Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons

Your guess

What do you think the warm ocean gives a hurricane to help it grow so huge?

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