Hurricanes - the EYE !

Science Minute with Mary – Inside the Eye of a Hurricane 🌪️👁️

Did you know the very center of a hurricane is called the eye? From above, it looks like a giant hole in the clouds.

Inside, the air is surprisingly calm compared to the surrounding storm — but don’t be fooled, danger is all around.

The Eye vs. the Eyewall

• The eye is surrounded by the eyewall — a ring of towering thunderstorms with the hurricane’s strongest winds and heaviest rain.

• Hurricane Hunters — brave pilots from the U.S. Air Force and NOAA — sometimes fly right into the eye to collect data on temperature, pressure, and wind speed. Yes, they pass through the eyewall to get there!

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Rotation and the “Dirty” Side

• In the Northern Hemisphere, hurricanes spin counterclockwise. This makes the right-hand side (relative to the storm’s direction) the “dirty side,” where winds are strongest and storm surge is often worse.

• The left-hand side is sometimes called the “clean side” — but it’s still very dangerous.

  
  

A 180° Wind Shift

• When the eye passes over you, the wind stops — sometimes the sun even peeks out. But once the other side of the eyewall arrives, winds slam back in from the opposite direction. This sudden shift can cause buildings and trees already weakened to collapse.

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Mary’s Safety Tip - If you ever find yourself in the path of a hurricane, don’t go outside when the eye passes overhead. It’s a trap — the storm will roar back in minutes.

Image credit: NOAA / Hurricane Gilbert’s eye over the Gulf of Mexico, 1988

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