Gavin Newsom declares a state of emergency and sheriff orders evacuations as Hurricane Hilary bears down on California: Panic buying sweeps stores as 42M brace for 'catastrophic flooding'

Daily Mail UK ^ | August 20, 2023 | Alice Wright

[Svartalfiar]

Anything north of the equator in the east pacific is now called a Hurricane. And anything below a Category 1 Hurricane is considered a Tropical Storm.

So it started as a Tropical Storm, grew into a Cat 4 Hurricane, and then slowed back down to a Tropical Storm again.

So if it hits these US or Mexico, hurricane. Not us, typhoon.

And yes, I am aware of that, but the article was written/talking about a single point in time. It should be consistent in using one or the other, not interchanging them.

[Openurmind]

It formed north of the equator in the east pacific. Geography makes the difference. In the north west pacific they are called Cyclones. In the Indian ocean they would be called a typhoon.

https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/hurricanes-cyclones-and-typhoons-explained/

The name changes in stages as the winds increase and then decrease. They start as a Tropical depression, build into a tropical storm, build into a hurricane/cyclone/typhoon, build into higher category hurricanes/cyclones/typhoons. Then as the winds decrease they drop in categories down to a tropical storm again, then down to a tropical depression again.

So what they call it depends on the wind speeds at the time they are referring to it and where it is geographically.