🔍 Key Concepts

• Hurricane structure and lifecycle – especially what happens when a storm curves away from the tropics • Steering currents and mid-latitude westerlies – how they affect storm direction and speed • Typical behavior of hurricanes as they move from low latitudes to higher latitudes

💭 Think About

• Think about what kind of winds (trade winds vs. westerlies) steer a hurricane before recurvature, and which winds steer it after recurvature • Consider whether the steering winds encountered after recurvature are usually stronger, weaker, or similar compared to those it had before • Ask yourself: in real storm tracks you’ve seen on weather charts, does the storm usually slow down, speed up, or stay steady after it turns away from the tropics?

✅ Before You Answer

• Be clear on what recurvature means: the point where the storm turns poleward and then eastward, away from its original westward track • Connect hurricane forward speed to the strength of the environmental steering flow (the larger-scale winds that push the storm along) • Verify in your notes or text whether storms in the mid-latitudes usually move faster or slower than in the deep tropics