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" Category 3 Hurricane  1 | Heat Engine Hurricanes are massive dynamos powered by the evaporation of water and its subsequent recondensation into clouds and rain. Each gallon of water that evaporates and condenses carries about as much thermal energy into the atmos\u00ADphere as that contained in 1 cup of gasoline.  2 | Hotspot Hurricanes spawn over patches of ocean where the surface water has warmed to at least 80 F down to a depth of at least 160 feet. Ocean water evaporates in these hotspots and the moist air rises. 3 | Updraft The rising of warm, moist air creates a low-pressure zone, pulling in more air from nearby areas, which also moistens and rises. The continued updraft is fed by condensation of evaporated\u00AD water into clouds and rain. The condensation dumps energy back into the air, warming it and making it more buoyant.  4 | Spiral Surrounding air flows into the low-pressure zone in a spiral pattern. This inward-spiraling air forms the hurricane&amp;#039;s destructive winds. The direction of the spiral is determined by the Coriolis effect\u2014a byproduct of the Earth&amp;#039;s rotation. 5 | Sinking Air is ejected from the top of the storm at an altitude of about 40,000 feet. This cooled, dried air sinks through the eye of the storm or else flows out and sinks in the outer bands of the storm, forming areas without rain. 6 | Magnitude At its peak, a hurricane can dump 5 cubic miles of rain per day and unleash thermal power (freed by condensation of that water) at a rate of 6 x 1014 watts\u2014equal to 200 times the amount of electricity generated by humans worldwide. Only about 0.25 percent of this power is converted to wind. 7 | Effects In addition to destructive winds, hurricanes can pile up sea surges higher than 20 feet (which are responsible for most deaths). Even after winds dissipate inland, rain can cause flooding for days\u2014as happened with Hurricane Mitch, whose floods and mudslides killed nearly 20,000 people in \u00ADCentral America in 1998.  &amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;lt;&amp;amp;lt;&amp;amp;lt; What If a Hurricane Hit New York City?  How to Protect the U.S. from Floods &amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;gt;  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a7129/how-a-hurricane-works-6327757/>