Typhoon vs hurricane vs cyclone: what’s the difference?

One storm, three names

A tropical cyclone is a rotating system of thunderstorms around a low-pressure center over warm ocean water. Once its sustained winds reach 74 mph (64 knots, 119 km/h), it gets the regional name: a hurricane in the Atlantic and the eastern and central North Pacific, a typhoon in the western North Pacific, and a cyclone (cyclonic storm or tropical cyclone) in the Indian Ocean and the South Pacific. Weaker systems are tropical depressions and tropical storms nearly everywhere. The physics are identical; only the ocean, the agency and the rulebook change.

Hurricane vs typhoon: are typhoons stronger?

A typhoon is not a stronger kind of storm, but the West Pacific produces more strong ones. From 1991 to 2020 it averaged 9.0 major storms (Category 3 or higher) a season, against 3.2 in the Atlantic, and since 1980 it has had 125 Category 5 storms to the Atlantic’s 26.

Storm for storm the odds lean the same way: 17% of West Pacific storms that reached hurricane strength went on to Category 5, against 8% in the Atlantic. The single strongest storm in our archive since 1980, though, was not a typhoon: Hurricane Patricia peaked at 215 mph (185 knots) in the East Pacific in 2015.

Season averages: 1991–2020. Counts and strongest: 1980 to today. All on 1-minute sustained winds, so “hurricane-strength” means 74 mph or more in every basin.

Why the wind numbers differ

Agencies do not measure “sustained wind” the same way. The US National Hurricane Center, Central Pacific Hurricane Center and Joint Typhoon Warning Center use a 1-minute average. The World Meteorological Organization standard, used by the Japan Meteorological Agency, Australia, Météo-France and most others, is a 10-minute average, and India uses a 3-minute average. A longer average smooths out the peaks, so for the same storm the 10-minute wind is usually about 10% lower than the 1-minute wind.

HurriTracker’s archive uses 1-minute winds for every basin so that categories mean the same thing everywhere. That is why our number for a typhoon may be higher than the one in a JMA bulletin. Neither is wrong; they measure different things.

Different scales

• Saffir-Simpson (Categories 1–5): Atlantic and eastern/central Pacific hurricanes. See the hurricane categories.
• JMA scale: tropical storm, severe tropical storm and typhoon; some national services add terms like “super typhoon” with their own thresholds. JTWC calls storms with 1-minute winds of 130 knots or more super typhoons.
• IMD scale: from depression and deep depression up through cyclonic storm, severe, very severe and extremely severe cyclonic storm to super cyclonic storm.
• Australian scale (Categories 1–5): based on the strongest wind gusts, so it does not line up with Saffir-Simpson categories.

Do typhoons spin the other way? Rotation by hemisphere

No. Typhoons and hurricanes both form north of the equator, so both spin counterclockwise when seen from above. The hemisphere sets the direction, not the name: storms south of the equator, including the cyclones of Australia, the South Pacific and the south Indian Ocean, spin clockwise. A cyclone in the Bay of Bengal spins counterclockwise, just like a hurricane.

The spin comes from the Earth’s rotation, the Coriolis effect, which fades toward the equator. PAGASA, the Philippine weather service, notes that the disturbances that become typhoons and hurricanes do not strengthen into them until they are more than about 5° of latitude from the equator.

What about tornadoes and monsoons?

A tornado is far smaller. NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center uses the meteorological definition: a violently rotating column of air in contact with the ground, hanging from or under a thunderstorm cloud. Most tornadoes last less than 10 minutes. A tropical cyclone is a whole system of thunderstorms that lasts for days.

In our archive, the median named storm since 1980 was tracked for 7.8 days from first to last best-track fix. The longest-lived, Cyclone Freddy in 2023, was tracked for 38 days.

Hurricanes can spawn tornadoes, though. The Storm Prediction Center says hurricane tornadoes tend to form in the outer rain bands, mostly north through southeast of the center, roughly the storm’s eastern half.

A monsoon is not a storm at all. The National Weather Service defines it as a wind, driven by the different heating of land and sea, that reverses direction with the seasons.

Around India the calendars differ: of the 284 North Indian named storms since 1980, 81% formed in April–June or October–December and only 15% in July–September.

Where to follow each kind of storm

Live Atlantic and eastern and central Pacific hurricanes are on the hurricane tracker. The typhoon tracker has recent West Pacific tracks and history, and the cyclone tracker does the same for the Indian Ocean and the Southern Hemisphere; live tracking of typhoons and cyclones is not available yet. Wherever you are, the official warnings from your national weather service are the ones to act on.