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  • Intense rainfall.

  • Winds of 120 km/h ( 75 mph ) or higher.

  • Storm surge.

  • These are the signs of a hurricane.

  • During its reign of terror, a hurricane can release as much energy as 10,000 nuclear bombs.

  • And guess what?

  • There are two of them.

  • And they're on a collision course.

  • This is what if and here is what will happen if two hurricanes collided

  • Meet Dr. Sakuhei Fujiwhara, the Japanese meteorologist who first defined the interaction between two hurricanes.

  • The Fujiwhara effect describes what happens when two whirling weather systems called cyclonic vortexes, come close to each other.

  • Cyclonic vortexes could be hurricanes or typhoons.

  • And if they get within about 1,000 km (620 mi) of each other, they can be even more dangerous.

  • It doesn't occur very often, but it does happen.

  • And some scientists believe that it will happen more often as global temperatures continue to rise.

  • The term hurricane gets its name from Huracan, known in Mayan mythology as a god of wind, storm, and fire.

  • And you're about to see why.

  • Hurricanes, or typhoons, form when warm, moist air over the ocean rises, and nearby air takes its place, forming swirls of air.

  • As the warm, rising air cools, it makes huge clouds filled with moisture.

  • These clouds continue to spin and expand, causing intense rain, wind, and surging tides wherever the storm goes.

  • Hurricanes can be extremely costly, both in material damages and in human lives.

  • So, how much more devastation can we expect when two hurricanes collide?

  • You might be looking up at two approaching storms and think to yourself, "That can't be good."

  • And you'd be right.

  • But how bad things are about to become for you really depends on how big the storm is.

  • If two hurricanes are about the same size and strength, they'll do a "dance" and orbit around a common center.

  • The result of this "dance" might send both storms off in different directions.

  • They could be catastrophic for any city or region that wasn't prepared for a hurricane.

  • But if one of the hurricanes is bigger than the other, the larger one can absorb the smaller one.

  • This wouldn't create some kind of mega storm like you see in the movies, with astronomical wind speeds and storm surges that wipe out whole cities.

  • But two hurricanes combined could still make the hurricane stronger and longer-lasting.

  • Hurricanes are the most deadly storms.

  • So, increasing their strength can have a massive impact on peoples' lives, on the economy, and on healthcare systems whenever they hit populated areas.

  • Hurricane Katrina was the costliest hurricane to hit the United States so far, and that was only a category 3 storm.

  • A climatologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Kerry Emmanuel, believes that wind speeds in a hurricane could increase by about five percent for every 1 ℃ ( 1.8 ℉ ) increase in tropical ocean temperatures.

  • A category 5 storm has winds of 252 km/h ( 152 mph ) or stronger.

  • Will we one day have to classify a category 6 storm?

  • Let's hope not.

  • But there are other reasons why we should try to keep the Earth's temperature from rising.

  • Do you know what would happen if all the world's ice melted?

  • Well, that's a story for another What If.

Intense rainfall.

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