Why the Center of a Hurricane Is Perfectly Calm

The deadliest part of a hurricane surrounds the calmest place on Earth.

In the middle of a 400-mile storm, the winds drop, the rain stops, and the sky clears. Why is the eye so eerily calm?

A hurricane is a giant engine spinning around a low-pressure center. Warm, moist air spirals inward and rockets upward in a ring of towering thunderstorms called the eyewall, where the winds are strongest. But that air can't all pile up at the center. The fierce rotation flings it outward, and to fill the gap, air high above the eye sinks down. Sinking air warms and dries, which shuts off cloud formation. That's why the core stays clear and quiet, a column of calm drilled through the heart of the storm.

So the calm eye is a trap. When it passes, the eyewall slams back, and the wind now hits you full force from the opposite direction.

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