Summer in Mexico means sunny, warm days and balmy nights are expected…a less attractive feature of summer approaching is that hurricane season is on its way. These powerful storms start in the ocean, increase in strength and some make landfall, normally along the Pacific Coast. Also known as tropical cyclones, hurricanes are an unpredictable force in nature that become labeled as such once they reach sustained wind speeds of at least 74 miles per hour.

With hurricane season arriving in Mexico along with the heat and humidity, did you know that there are other names given to similar storms in other parts of the world? ‘Typhoon’, ‘hurricane’ and cyclone are regional names for the same kind of storm. They are all special names given to tropical cyclones —large regional storm systems forming over warm tropical ocean water and rotating around a central eye—that have grown strong enough to have very damaging effects.