Tropical storm Henriette has battered Mexico's Pacific coast, killing nine people as Central America endures its worst hurricane season for years.

U.S. weather officials say a hurricane aircraft has reported sustained winds of 220 kilometers per hour in Hurricane Felix as the storm strengthens into a powerful Category Four over the Caribbean.

Data from a NOAA Reconnaissance Aircraft indicate that tropical depression five in the Gulf of Mexico has reached tropical strom strength andis now tropical storm ERIN.

Southern China on Wednesday braced for the arrival of two powerful tropical storms, with more than 250,000 people evacuated as a precaution, the government said.

About twice as many Atlantic hurricanes form each year on average than a century ago, according to a new statistical analysis of hurricanes and tropical storms in the north Atlantic. The study concludes that warmer sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and altered wind patterns associated with global climate change are fueling much of the increase.

A high-flying NASA mission over Costa Rica and Panama in July and August should help scientists better understand how tropical storms influence global warming and stratospheric ozone depletion, says a University of Colorado at Boulder professor who is one of two mission scientists for the massive field campaign.

All eyes are on where hurricanes make landfall, but the massive storms actually cause the most deaths inland, where severe flooding often surprises residents.