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IELTS Reading Passage: Tracking Hurricanes
Tracking hurricanes
North American weathermen from the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration(NOAA)’s Hurricane Research Division have freshly enhanced the achievement rate in their predicting of where hurricanes are likely to strike land by an estimated 15 to 30%. This improvement in precision is due to the use of a tool called GPS-dropwindsonde, which can inquire about the atmosphere neighboring a hurricane while it is still out at sea. The climatic features of hurricanes over land are well realized because an inspection is possible with weather balloons containing cultured weatherman tools. When hurricanes are out of reach of balloons collecting details is decidedly tougher. Little is known of the climate conditions that lead hurricanes in the direction of land.
A correct assessment of where a hurricane will hit is essential in order to decrease the loss of life and equity. Hurricane Andrew, the most costly hurricane in U.S. history, killed 15 people and caused $35 billion of damages, in today’s dollars, in 1992. But the unnamed: group 4 2 hurricanes, which smacked southeast Florida in 1926 and killed 243 people would have affected an estimated $77 billion if it had struck today. The justification for this is the detonation in population growth and evolution along the South-east coast of the U.S. during the last half-century.Hurricanes happen in cycles every several decades, the last furious period in the U.S. being from 1940 to 1969. ‘Camille’, a class 5 hurricane of such catastrophic force that it led over a billion and a half dollars worth of harm at the time and killed 256 people, hit the coast of the Gulf of Mexico in 1969 with winds over 320 kilometers per hour.
So far, for the last quarter century, hurricane activity has been almost mild. Analysts do not know the exact reason for the cycles of hurricane activity, but they could be caused by an occurrence called the ‘Atlantic Conveyor’. This is the name given to the huge current of water that flows cold from the peak of the globe slowly along the Atlantic ocean floor to Antarctica and resurfaces decades later prior to flowing back north, fascinating heat as it crosses the diameter. Since hurricanes obtain their energy from the heat of warm water, it is thought that an improvement in the speed of the ‘Conveyor’, as it pulls warm water to the north, is a gauge of add to hurricane activity.The use of GPS-dropwindsondes commence in 1997. Small surmising gadgets dropped from planes at very high distances and over a wide area, they are considerably more divulged than formerly used sensors. Because they weigh only 0.4 kilograms, they are able to stay upward for longer periods and transmit more data to the ground. Each sonde carries its own global emplacement satellite receiver.
The GPS signals received are used to compute the directions and speed of the wind, and data on climate, moisture, and storm gauge pressure at half-second intervals all the way down to the ocean surface.Dropwindsonde details are nourished into an exceptional barometrical computer in Maryland which causes a global computer model of wind design. Data researchers have found a huge changeability in the winds at sea level than formerly believed, but many predicted issues are beyond the solution, at least for the time being. For example, it is not so far known why hurricanes can immediately change in strength; present-day computer replicas often fail to forecast whether a hurricane will reach land or else cannot spot where a strike will happen.One astonishing result of the latest computer stimulation was the demolition of a huge part of downtown New York. Hurricane analysts believe that the city is more likely than Miami to ache a direct hit in the near future. Also, the unquestionable geographical qualities of the coastline near New York make it imaginable that a wall of water called a storm surge pushed ashore by hurricane winds would cause destructive flooding of Manhattan. A storm surge was in charge of the more than 8000 deaths affected by the hurricane that demolished the city of Galveston in 1900.
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IELTS Reading Questions: Tracking hurricanes
Questions 1-4
- Write your answers in boxes 1-4 on your answer sheet.
- The first one has been done for you as an example.
Example: what does the letter NOAA stand for?
Answer: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
1. Which instruments have recently increased the success rate of U.S hurricane forecasts?
2. What reason is given for the lack of knowledge of hurricanes at sea?
3. Why was the hurricane which struck in1926 not given a name?
4. What is the name of the strongest hurricane mentioned in the article?
Questions 5-11
- Look at the table below, According to the reading passage, to whom or what do the phrases on the right refer?
- Write your answers in boxes 5-11 on your answer sheet.
- The first one has been done for you as an example.
- Note- that you must give answers in No More Than Three Words.
WHO or WHAT?
| Ex:__________ | have improved their forecasts for hurricanes. |
| 5. __________ | becomes stronger every few decades. |
| 6. __________ | energizes all hurricanes. |
| 7. __________ | is a huge current of water flowing from north to south. |
| 8. __________ | could not stay in the air for a long time. |
| 9. __________ | know more about surface winds than they knew before. |
| 10.__________ | recently predicted a catastrophe for the city of New York. |
| 11.__________ | is a huge wave of water blown on land by a hurricane. |
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Questions 12-15
- Refer to the reading passage and decide which of the answers best completes the following sentence.
- Write your answers in boxes 12-15 on your answer sheet.
12. The intensity of U.S hurricanes.
- Has increased by 15 to 30% recently
- Depends on the GPS-dropwindsonde
- Was greater from 1940 to 1969 than at any previous time.
- Can be more accurately measured by satellite assistance.
13. The category 4 hurricanes that hit Florida in 1926
- Was the most catastrophic to hit the U.S this century.
- Caused $77 billion worth of damage
- Caused an explosion in population growth
- None of the above.
14. Hurricane ‘Camille’:
- Caused $1.5 billion dollars damage in today’s money
- Was the worst U.S storm this century in terms of life lost
- Was named in the 1950s
- Was not as intense as the hurricane of 1926
15. The writer of the passage probably believes that:
- accurate tracking of hurricanes might be possible in the future.
- Storm surges only occur within computer simulations
- Computer predictions are unreliable.
- The worst hurricanes occur in the U.S.
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Recommended Questions:
Renewable Energy IELTS Reading Question with Answer
Tracking hurricanes Reading Answers
1. GPS-dropwindsonde
2.(weather)balloons
3.(the custom of ) naming hurricanes began in the (early)1950s
4.camille
5.hurricanes
6. Heat (of water)/ warm water
7.(the) atlantic conveyor
8.previously used sensors
9.data analysts
10.(a) computer (simulation)/hurricane researches
11.(a) storm surge
12. D
13.D
14.B
15.A
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