A hurricane acts like a giant turbine that derives energy from warm and moist air. They tend to form in tropical ocean regions with water temperatures above 26 degrees Celsius. As the water heats up, the air above it rises and cools, forming clouds and thunderstorms. This rising air creates a low-pressure area below, causing air to rush in.
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Tropical hurricanes during the period from 1945 to 2006 avoided the equatorial region. Image: Wikimedia.
With the assistance of wind, these conditions can lead to the formation of a hurricane. Eventually, the clouds above release rain and heat down to the surface, continuously supplying energy to the storm below.
The wind direction and rotation of a hurricane are determined by the Coriolis force, which is the inertial rotation caused by the Earth’s rotational motion. In the Northern Hemisphere, the Earth’s rotation pulls the air counterclockwise, resulting in hurricanes rotating counterclockwise as well. In the Southern Hemisphere, the opposite occurs, causing hurricanes to rotate clockwise.
Although they rage over warm tropical seas, hurricanes rarely form within 300 kilometers of the equator. In 2003, Typhoon Vamei operated just 150 kilometers north of the equator, but that was truly an exception with an occurrence rate of less than once in a century.
Hurricanes do not appear near the equator because there is no Coriolis effect there, meaning that weather elements do not tend to “circulate” into hurricanes. Similarly, hurricanes do not cross the equator because it would require them to stop rotating, reverse direction, and rotate in a different direction to continue their operation.
In theory, a “well-developed storm” could be strong enough to overcome the relatively weak Coriolis force and reach the equator, according to Gary Barnes, a meteorology professor at the University of Hawaii. However, Barnes and other experts point out that they have never encountered any real-life examples of this case.