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 The Monster Storm

The Monster Storm
Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   grades 4 to 5
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   5.63

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    deceptive, funnel-shaped, meteorologists, torrential, violent, definitely, entire, lasts, daily, actually, bands, eastern, powerful, spiral, certain, however
     content words:    Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, Indian Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic, South Pacific, United States, Caribbean Sea

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The Monster Storm
By Trista L. Pollard 		  
1     Our weather can change daily. One day it could be clear and sunny, and the next day you could have clouds and rain. There are also moments when you may have severe weather. Hurricanes are a form of severe weather. They are violent storms that have whirling or rotating winds. Winds are the movement of air over the Earth's surface. This air moves from areas of high pressure to areas of low pressure. These winds are called sustained winds because they move at a certain speed during the entire storm. In fact, meteorologists, or scientists who study weather, are the people who calculate sustained winds. They find the average wind speed of a storm during a period of one minute. Hurricane winds travel 74 miles per hour or more. Some of the worst hurricanes in history had wind speeds of 155 miles per hour or more. Keep in mind, these winds are different from the wind gusts you feel on a chilly fall day.
 
2     Hurricanes start out as tropical storms. Tropical storms form in oceans where there is low pressure. An area of low pressure means that air is rising. They have rotating winds that move 39 to 73 miles per hour. There are also tropical depressions. These storms have rotating winds up to 38 miles per hour. In addition to rotating winds, hurricanes can be 250 to 500 miles wide. This means that they affect a larger area of land and people. The hurricanes we hear about most often are the Atlantic Ocean storms. In fact, these storms happen in other oceans. In the western Pacific Ocean, these storms are called typhoons. In this area there are about 20 hurricanes (typhoons) a year. In the Indian Ocean and around Australia, these storms are called cyclones. The North Atlantic Ocean has about five hurricanes per year. Hurricanes do not form in the South Atlantic and eastern South Pacific oceans.
 
3     Just like there are four seasons during the year, there is a hurricane season. The season begins in June and goes through October. However, some of .....
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