Here’s a trivia question for you: what’s the difference between a Hurricane and a Typhoon
The answer is: Both Hurricanes and Typhoons are tropical cyclones with winds of at least 75 mph. The difference is mainly one of semantics… they are designated as hurricanes in the atlantic and the eastern pacific, but are known as Typhoons in the western pacific. (In the southern hemisphere, they are simply called “cyclones”).
In fact, in theory, a tropical cyclone doesn’t follow set boundaries, and can cross the international dateline. This is what happened with Hurricane Ioke, which formed near Hawaii. It crossed the dateline Sunday morning and became known as Typhoon Ioke. Ioke is fairly impressive Catagory 5 storm, which, thankfully, isn’t affected much in the way of major population centers.
That means The Weather Channel can keep an eye on Tropical Storm Ernesto in the Atlantic.