A tropical cyclone is the most powerful storm on Earth, and it's really a gigantic heat engine running on warm ocean water. We explain how these storms form and organise themselves, why they need warm seas and calm high winds to grow, why they're called different names in different places, and how a warming ocean is expected to change them.

You'll come away understanding where a cyclone gets its staggering energy, why the eye is calm, what the category scale does and doesn't tell you, why the water is often deadlier than the wind, and what the science does — and doesn't — say about cyclones in a warming world.

Talking Science is sponsored by Kinsoft. Visit www.kinsoft.com.au

Further reading: Australian Bureau of Meteorology tropical cyclone resources ...