You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.

Howdy howdy y'all.

Okay, the 2021 hurricane season officially ended on November 30th and there was a lot of

activity.

This year was a pretty busy season, not quite as bad as last year but it's important to

know that it only takes one storm to really leave a big impact.

With so much that's happened in the water and on land, we thought it might be nice to

do a hurricane wrap.

I chatted with Matthew Capucci, he's an atmospheric scientist.

Well actually, I'll let him introduce himself.

I'm a meteorologist for the Washington Post, Fox 5 in DC for WAMU and pretty much everybody.

So today on the show, we'll take a look at this hurricane season, the ups, the lows,

and the surprising end.

Plus, how climate change might be affecting these storms.

I'm Thomas Liu and you're listening to Shortwave, the Daily Science Podcast from NPR.

So Matthew, can you start by defining in simple terms, what is a hurricane versus a tropical

storm or a depression?

That's a great question.

So, all these tropical cyclones start as clusters of thunderstorm activity.

And when thunderstorms are near each other, they start to interact and over the tropics,

the most efficient way for them to interact to work together is to have a common center.

So all the air kind of goes in, goes up around that common center, sinks on the periphery

...