Some hurricane questions:

Q. Flossie was a tropical storm before it was a hurricane. What's the difference?

A. Both are rotating tropical cyclones. They normally start as tropical disturbances, then are called tropical depressions when some rotation starts. It's a tropical storm when top wind speeds are between 39 and 73 miles an hour, and a hurricane at 74 miles an hour and higher.

Q. When the wind is blowing, is it coming from the eye of the hurricane?

A. No. Winds blow roughly in a circle around the eye of a tropical cyclone. The eye is normally at right angles to the wind. If you face into the wind and point your right hand out to the side or a little back of the side, you're pointing in the direction of the eye. (Winds do shift somewhat, so this won't always be accurate.)

Q. Is the wind just as strong on all sides of a hurricane?

A. No. Sailors refer to the navigable semicircle and the dangerous semicircle, where winds are stronger. North of the equator, where cyclone winds blow counterclockwise around the center, the dangerous semicircle is the right side, as you face in the direction the hurricane as a whole is moving. Thus, as Flossie has moved to the west, the northern side of the storm has had stronger winds farther from the center. Because of the stronger winds, it would also have bigger seas.

Q. Why is it stronger on one side than the other?

A. As the storm moves forward, the winds going in the same direction have the forward speed added to them. So if a storm with 100-mile-an-hour winds is traveling at 20 miles an hour across the surface, the peak winds in the dangerous semicircle are 100+20 or 120 miles an hour.

Q. What did that mean for the Big Island as Hurricane Flossie came by?

A. Hawai'i Island was expected to be in the dangerous semicircle as Flossie got near, meaning powerful winds extended farther from the hurricane's eye on that side.

That's why storm-force winds were expected to hit the island, even though the eye of the storm was well south of there.