Appearances Aren't Everything

We have all heard the saying "Don't judge a book by its cover" over and over again.  That holds a lot of truth to it in more ways than one.  The cover of a book could be bland and boring looking, but the story inside it could be the most adventurous story ever.  Someone could look like the Rocky Dennis kid from Mask, but have a heart of gold.  You get what I am saying.  This also goes with hurricanes and tornadoes as well!  Tornadoes are a little harder to see whether their size matches their strength or not so we are not going to focus on them.  As for hurricanes,  these are far more easier to portray this saying with.  Normally when we see a big hurricane we think of this:


If you guessed that this was Katrina then you are right!  This was Hurricane Katrina at her peak as a category 5.  Big and scary isn't it?  Let's go to some more recent storms to two of them in the Atlantic in 2012, hurricanes Leslie and Michael.


Courteous of the National Hurricane Center is a visible image of Hurricane Leslie (left) and Hurricane Michael (right).  Hurricane Leslie is a pretty big storm so she has got to be a strong storm and Hurricane Michael is really small compared to Hurricane Leslie so it must be weaker than her right?  Think again!  When this image was taken, Hurricane Leslie was a weak category 1 hurricane with max winds of 75 MPH.  Hurricane Michael, however, is a category 3 hurricane with max winds of 115 MPH!  Crazy huh?  Technically, it is because neither are in the best environment, esp. Michael, to be strong storms.  But for the most part, it isn't all that crazy.  Look at Leslie and look at Michael.  Leslie might be a large storm, but it has a lot of gaps in the clouds indicating dry air is keeping it from strengthening much.  Michael, on the other hand, is really small, but a classic structure with no gaps or even a hint of dry air near the center.

So, appearances aren't everything as proven here and this also proves that sometimes size doesn't matter.  It's simply a matter of what isn't seen with the naked eye.

To add some information on Hurricane Michael, it is the first major hurricane and category 3 hurricane of the 2012 hurricane season.