"TudorHgh" wrote in message
...
Why does the wind drop in the centre of a Hurricane?


At the centre of a hurricane the pressure is a minimum, so there is
no
pressure *gradient*, i.e. the pressure does not vary with distance.
Because
the wind is caused by the pressure gradient, there is little or no wind in
the
eye of the hurricane. The pressure gradient is a maximum just outside the
eye
wall, where the strongest winds are.

Tudor Hughes, Warlingham, Surrey.

I don't think that is quite true. As the eye passes over the pressure
continues to drop rapidly until the center of the eye is overhead at which
point the pressure bottoms out and begins a rapid rise. The reason the eye
is calm is that as the spiralling winds converge towards the centre, there
comes a point at which the pressure gradient force cannot "pull" the winds
in any further so the air stops converging at a certain distance from the
centre of the storm. This air now has to go somewhere so it rises in
towering cumulonimbus and thus forms the eye wall. This is how I understand
it anyway.

Adam