If ”Hurricane” Huron were plunked down in the middle of the western Caribbean or had somehow migrated there, would there be any reason not to say it was a hurricane rather than an extratropical cyclone? Didn’t it have all the attributes of a hurricane (albeit a weak one), except for a tropical origin? Is there a useful reason for defining hurricanes (and typhoons, I guess) as necessarily forming in the tropics? Are they so defined?
Tropical storms and hurricanes evolve from deep layer convection around the tropics. The storm over lake Huron was a frontal interaction.
Are you based in Columbus?
The short version is the “tropical” and “non-tropical” terminology as to storms is not about latitude at all.
It’s about how the storm forms and what powers it. An extratropical cyclone is a cold-core storm. A tropical cyclone is a warm-core storm. Very different physics at work even though the outcome of each is a multi-hundred wile wide swirling mass of air.
This is the relevant article: Cyclone - Wikipedia that will explain all this to you.
“It’s not about latitude at all.”
Ah, okay this makes sense. Thanks.
“Are you based in Columbus?”
Huhn?
NOAA defines hurricanes as “products of the tropical ocean and atmosphere.”
I didn’t mention it, but as this other related article Tropical cyclone - Wikipedia makes clear there are traditional non-technical terms for intense tropical cyclones that are absolutely synonymous.
A “typhoon”, a “hurricane”, and a “tropical cyclone” are exactly the same physical phenomenon. Just labeled differently in the Pacific, in the Atlantic & Caribbean, or in the Indian oceans respectively. Why? Tradition and inertia. Training the pubic to use new terms is hard slow work nobody wants to take on.