Describe the events that lead to …

Cyclone refers to any spinning storm that rotates around a low-pressure center. The low-pressure center is also referred to as the 'eye' of the storm, which is well known for being eerily calm compared with the areas under the spinning 'arms' of the storm. You could say that the eye is watching what's going on down below, so it needs a clear path, but the arms are where all the action happens because this is where the storm is throwing out all of its rain and wind.

Even though they form over different areas, cyclones tend to come about in the same way and revolve around that low-pressure eye. Warm air likes to rise, and as it rises, it cools. Cool air can't hold as much moisture as warm air, so that water gets squeezed out of the condensing air and a cloud begins to form. If the warm air rises very quickly, this creates an updraft.

Likewise, if the water in the cloud builds up enough, it may fall back to the ground as rain and draw cool air down with it as a downdraft. When they work together, that warm updraft and cool downdraft create a storm cell. As this process continues, the cloud grows and we eventually get a large thunderstorm cloud.

This thunderstorm cloud is now ready to diversify into other storms like tropical cyclones and tornadoes. But this can't happen unless the air in the cloud starts spinning horizontally. If this occurs over the tropical ocean, this is called a tropical depression. This is like a baby tropical cyclone, with wind speeds less than 39 mph.

If it starts spinning even faster and has wind speeds between 40-73 mph, we have a tropical storm. If the storm grows even larger over the tropical ocean and has wind speeds above 74 mph, we have our full-grown hurricane, typhoon or cyclone, depending on where that storm is found.