10. The Southern Coastlands

The Southern Coastlands of the United States are known for their extreme weather, specifically hurricanes. If you look at the two pictures above, you can see that a map of the Southern Coastlands is almost the same as the hurricane hazard zones in the United States. A handful of devastating hurricanes have rocked the coast in recent history, but hurricane Katrina, in 2005, is the most recent and likely the most devastating. Hurricane Katrina devistated more than 90,000 square miles of the Southern Coastlands, killed 1277 people and cost over 200 billion dollars in damage (1).

Portland, Oregon does not get hurricanes like the south for two main reasons; the water is too cold and the wind and water currents bring storms from the south away from the west coast.

For a hurricane to form, it needs warm water (generally above 77º F) which helps create a large low-pressure pocket attracting warm, moist air into a giant counter clockwise hurricane.

In the Pacific ocean however, any storms that form in the warm waters closer to the equator are quickly brought out into the pacific ocean, away from the west coast of the United States.

Also, the water off the coast of Oregon is brought down from Alaska, and therefore is much colder compared to waters at the same latitude off the coast of Japan. Japans waters are brought up from the equator and Japan is often inundated by Typhoons.



1. Stephen S. Birdsall. Regional Landscapes of the United States and Canada