Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE)

Accumulated cyclone energy, or "ACE," is used to express the activity and destructive potential of individual tropical cyclones and entire tropical cyclone seasons. ACE is caluclated as the square of the wind speed every 6 hours, and is then scaled by a factor of 10,000 for usability. The ACE of a season is the sum of the ACE for each storm and takes into account the number, strength, and duration of all the tropical storms in the season. The caveat to using ACE as a measure of the activity of a season is that it does not take the size of the hurricane or tropical storm into account. The damage potential of a hurricane is proportional to the square or cube of the maximum wind speed, and thus ACE is not only a measure of tropical cyclone activity, but a measure of the damage potential of an individual cyclone or a season.

Tornadoes kill 6 in Texas; Mahasen makes landfall in Bangladesh, killing 5

After going twelve months with a record-low tornado death toll of just seven people, last night we received a jolting reminder that tornadoes typically kill a lot more people than that in the U.S. A deadly tornado swept through Granbury, Texas near 8 pm CDT, killing six and injuring up to 100. Preliminary figures indicate that a total ten tornadoes touched down in Texas last night.

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