Spaghetti models, rapid intensification, storm surge. Confused? Here's what hurricane terms mean

It's a confusing time when a hurricane threatens, and some terms used by officials aren't known by everyone, so here's a storm glossary.

Let's start with the broad category of these storms, called tropical cyclones. In the northern hemisphere, a tropical cyclone is a rapidly counterclockwise-rotating storm that forms in Earth's warmer areas that is organized with a center that winds flow out of. Tropical cyclones rotate clockwise in the southern hemisphere.

The strongest tropical cyclones in the Atlantic and eastern and central Pacific oceans are called hurricanes. In the northwest Pacific they are called typhoons and in the south Pacific and Indian oceans they are called cyclones or tropical cyclones.

In the Atlantic, the weakest of these systems are called tropical depressions. They have winds of less than 39 mph (63 kph).

When a tropical depression reaches 39 mph (63 kph) but is weaker than 74 mph (119 kph) they are called tropical storm and receive a name from a pre-established list.

When a tropical storm hits 74 mph (120 kph), it achieves hurricane status. There are five categories of hurricanes based on maximum sustained winds speed in a rating system called the Saffir-Simpson Scale.

The weakest is a Category 1, with winds of 74-95 mph (120-150 kph) and it will have dangerous winds that produce some damage. Tree branches will snap and some will be uprooted. Extensive power damage is likely.

A Category 2 has winds of 96-110 mph (155-175 kph) and can be disastrous, with near-total power loss expected near the center.

When hurricanes sustain winds exceeding 111 mph (180 kph), they get major hurricane status, with devastating consequences. Even well-built homes may be severely damaged by a Category 3 hurricane with winds of 111-129 mph (180-210 kph).

A Category 4 hurricane is considered catastrophic, with winds of 130-156 mph (210-250 kph) that leave entire areas uninhabitable for weeks or months.

The scale tops out at Category 5, when a hurricane's winds exceed 157 mph (250 kph). A high percentage of the homes in the disaster region will be destroyed. Power outages could last for months.

Storm surge is the deadly rise of water generated by a storm that's above and beyond the normal tide. It starts in the ocean but could include rivers and canals. Storm surges once caused nearly half of a hurricane's deaths, but surge-related fatalities have come down with warnings and education to about 11% of all direct deaths. Surges can reach as much as 20 feet or more and that does not include waves, which are on top of storm surge.

Storm tide is storm surge plus tides.

A hurricane's center is called the eye. It is calm inside the eye, but it is crucial to the storm's formation and continuation. It is circular and is usually 20 to 40 miles (30 to 60 km) in diameter, but can be bigger. The smaller the eye is, the stronger the storm. After awhile, a storm can form a new second eyewall around the first in a process called eyewall replacement that temporarily weakens the storm's intensity but enables it to grow larger overall.

The outside of the eye is the eyewall and it is the storm's most dangerous area with the strongest winds. When an area on the ground is hit by the eyewall, it will be buffeted by intense winds, then get a break before being slammed by the other side of the eye in a second round of the storm's strongest winds.

When the eye of a hurricane or tropical storm goes over land, that point is called landfall. But high winds, rain and storm surge can cause all sorts of damage many hours before landfall, and last many hours thereafter. Landfall is not necessarily where the strongest winds are, and the wider swirl of a storm can spread destruction across large areas.

The right front quadrant of a hurricane or northeast part of the eyewall tends to cause the most damage as the strongest winds blow counterclockwise around the center, so this at times is called a storm's dirty side. In the southern hemisphere, it's the left front quadrant that is the dirty side.

There are dozens of computer generated models that forecast changes in each storm's track and intensity. They vary because each one uses different assumptions about how storms operate and some prove better during certain storms and worse during others. Forecasters advise to avoid concentrating on one individual model. When many or all of the models are put on one map, they generally show an overall sense of what will happen. Sometimes they show a lot of lines going in different directions, which can look like cooked spaghetti.

The National Hurricane Center's official forecast is not one specific line, but rather a cone of uncertainty that expands with time, up to five days out. That cone shows the most probable area where the eye of the storm could move over time, but it doesn't mean the storm will be in the center of that cone. It is designed so that 67% of the most likely tracks fall within the cone.

A hurricane or tropical storm watch means conditions are possible within an area during the time specified by the National Weather Service. A hurricane or tropical storm warning means those conditions are no longer just possible, but expected. One way to think about it: A watch is having the ingredients to bake a cake, while a warning comes when the cake is pretty much done.

Wind shear is a change in wind speed or direction, or both, and it can weaken a storm. Crosswinds at high levels, such as 40,000 feet (12,200 meters) above sea level, can often decapitate a storm. Wind shear also can describe when winds up at the top of the storm blow in different directions than at bottom or middle.

When a storm, usually fed by unusually warm water, suddenly gathers a lot of strength, sustaining winds that increase in speed by at least 35 mph (56 kph) in 24 hours, it is called rapid intensification. This is a dangerous situation if it happens close to land.

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A heron hunts along the rough surf as Hurricane Isaias approaches Pensacola Beach, Fla., Friday, Oct. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

David Pipes and his bride McKenzie Hathoot pose for friends and family, as they just arrived for their wedding weekend, as Hurricane Isaias approaches Pensacola Beach, Fla., Thursday, Oct. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Residents pick up sandbags for storm preparation at the James Seals Jr. Parks & Recreation Center ahead of Hurricane Isaias' expected landfall along the Gulf Coast, Thursday, Oct. 8, 2026, in Mobile, Ala. (AP Photo/Octavio Jones)

This satellite image from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows Hurricane Isaias in the Gulf of Mexico, Friday, Oct. 9, 2026. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration via AP)

OSLO, Norway (AP) — Navi Pillay, a South African-born jurist and former U.N. human rights chief whose career has spanned from defending the rights of an imprisoned Nelson Mandela to leading a panel that found that Israel committed genocide in Gaza, won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for efforts that the award committee said promoted international law as it comes under attack.

Her win is sure to be seen as a high-profile rebuke to U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who have both rejected the findings of the U.N. commission she led on Gaza. The leaders also have been highly critical of the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court. Pillay has worked at both.

Hours after the award was announced in Norway, the Trump administration imposed sweeping new sanctions on the International Criminal Court as part of its campaign to dismantle the tribunal over investigations into the United States and its allies, including Israel.

On the 125th anniversary of the prize's inception, the Norwegian Nobel Committee sought "to remind the world that the rule of law, national and international, underpins the system we have set up to ensure peace and resolve conflicts nonviolently. Peace requires justice," committee Chairman Jørgen Watne Frydnes said.

Judges “guard the thin red line between order and chaos,” and the world needs jurists "of courage, vision and determination, qualities that Navi Pillay demonstrates in her work on the bench.”

In places such as Israel and in apartheid-era South Africa, she and peers took on some of the world’s most painful and sensitive legal issues and most vulnerable populations.

Pillay, 85, received the news while attending a forum in Nuremberg, Germany, where the trials of Nazi war criminals helped lay the foundations of international law. She was in the same room where the trials were held when the prize was announced.

She said efforts to weaken international criminal justice “endanger the progress painstakingly made since Nuremberg, and they risk returning us to a world in which power, rather than law, determines whose suffering matters.”

Pillay chaired the Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel, which was created by the U.N.-backed Human Rights Council. The commission a year ago concluded Israel was responsible for genocide in Gaza with a specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza.

Gaza was among Pillay’s first comments Friday after hearing she had won. “What’s happening there is genocide,” she said to more applause.

The commission also found that the Israeli president, prime minister and former defense minister "have incited the commission of genocide.” Israel, which has refused to cooperate with the commission since it was established in 2021, has strenuously denied the accusations.

Pillay has repeatedly rebuffed critics who accused her of antisemitism or turning a blind eye to the Hamas attacks in Israel. Under her leadership, the commission also issued reports accusing Hamas of war crimes and violations of international humanitarian law during its Oct. 7, 2023, attack.

In an interview with The Associated Press last year, she recalled how she worked closely with some Jewish lawyers in the fight against apartheid in her native South Africa and was invited to Israel as the U.N. rights chief from 2008 to 2014.

Growing up under the harsh system of segregation influenced Pillay's interest in human rights and the law. Starting with Mandela’s presidency, South Africa’s government has openly compared the situation faced by nonwhite people during apartheid to the Palestinians’ plight.

“We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians,” Mandela said soon after apartheid ended.

The Nobel announcement came at another critical time for Gaza, just two days after the anniversary of the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that killed about 1,200 people and sparked the war. Over 74,000 Palestinians have since been killed, with their territory devastated. Saturday marks a year since a fragile ceasefire took effect, while Israeli strikes continue.

Netanyahu wrote on X that the Nobel committee “has lost its moral compass” by awarding its highest honor to "a bigot who built her career around inventing and propagating blood libels against the one and only Jewish state.”

The award was announced less than three weeks before Israel’s election, in which Netanyahu is fighting to stay in power.

Pillay’s win and the new U.S. sanctions bring renewed attention to Trump’s ongoing feud with the International Criminal Court, where Pillay was a judge from 2003 to 2008.

In a video address, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the administration would “ban transactions with this rogue court, cutting off their resources and crippling its ability to operate against us.”

The sanctions block any assets the ICC as an institution has in U.S. jurisdictions and set a six-month timeline for American companies and individuals to wind down any business with the court.

The Nobel Committee did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment following Rubio’s announcement.

Pillay currently serves as an ad hoc judge at the International Court of Justice, the highest court of the United Nations, in the ongoing genocide case against Myanmar.

When countries do not have a representative on the court’s permanent, 15-judge panel, they can appoint an expert of their choice. Gambia, which launched the proceedings in 2019, selected Pillay when the country accused Myanmar of committing genocide against the Rohingya minority group.

As a young lawyer in apartheid South Africa, part of Pillay’s work involved establishing key rights for political prisoners being held on Robben Island, which included Mandela, who later won the Nobel Peace Prize.

After apartheid ended, Mandela appointed Pillay to be the country’s first non-white woman to serve as a High Court judge.

Last year, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado won the Nobel Peace Prize for her struggle to achieve a democratic transition in the South American nation.

Machado gave Trump her Nobel medal shortly after the United States ousted then-President Nicolás Maduro. But it was largely a symbolic gesture: The Nobel Committee has said the honor itself cannot be transferred.

In Trump’s second term, he has been outspoken about his desire for the Nobel, but has expressed doubts that the committee would ever award him the prize.

“They have a reputation for maybe not giving it to people like me,” Trump told reporters Wednesday.

Four of this year's Nobels were announced earlier this week, in the categories of medicine, physics, chemistry and literature. The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences will be announced Monday.

The prize money this year is 12 million Swedish kronor (about $1.2 million), whether for an individual, small group of laureates or organization.

Dazio reported from Berlin, and Keaten reported from Geneva. Associated Press journalists Gerald Imray in Cape Town, South Africa; Ali Swenson in New York; Cara Anna in Jerusalem; Molly Quell and Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands; and Mark Lewis in Stavanger, Norway, contributed to this report.

AP Nobel Prizes: https://apnews.com/hub/nobel-prizes

This story has been corrected to reflect that this is the 125th anniversary of the peace prize’s inception, not the 125th prize.

South African-born jurist and former U.N. human rights chief Navanethem "Navi" Pillay, speaks at the Nuremberg Forum in Nuremberg, Germany, Friday, Oct. 9, 2026, following the announcement that she had been awarded the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize. (Daniel Karmann/dpa via AP)

South African-born jurist and former U.N. human rights chief Navanethem "Navi" Pillay, sits at the Nuremberg Forum in Nuremberg, Germany, Friday, Oct. 9, 2026, following the announcement that she had been awarded the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize. (Daniel Karmann/dpa via AP)

South African-born jurist and former U.N. human rights chief Navanethem "Navi" Pillay, speaks at the Nuremberg Forum in Nuremberg, Germany, Friday, Oct. 9, 2026, following the announcement that she had been awarded the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize. (Daniel Karmann/dpa via AP)

South African-born jurist and former U.N. human rights chief Navanethem "Navi" Pillay, speaks at the Nuremberg Forum in Nuremberg, Germany, Friday, Oct. 9, 2026, following the announcement that she had been awarded the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize. (Daniel Karmann/dpa via AP)

The Chairman of the Nobel Committee, Jørgen Watne Frydnes, announces Navanethem Pillay as the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize laureate at the Nobel Institute in Oslo, Norway, Friday, Oct. 9, 2026. (Javad Parsa/NTB Scanpix via AP)

FILE - UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, answers journalist's questions during a press conference at the Geneva Press Club, in Geneva, Switzerland, July 31, 2014. (Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP, File)

FILE - U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay, center, visits the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, in Jerusalem, Feb. 8, 2011. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner, File)

FILE - Navanethem "Navi" Pillay, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, speaks during a press conference, at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Oct. 18, 2012. (Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP, File)

FILE - United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay, center, visits Al- Daraj Elementary Co-ed UNRWA school in Gaza City, Feb. 10, 2011. (AP Photo/Adel Hana, File)

The Chairman of the Nobel Committee, Jørgen Watne Frydnes, announces the Nobel Peace Prize 2026 at the Nobel Institute in Oslo, Norway, Friday, Oct. 9, 2026. (Javad Parsa/NTB Scanpix via AP)

The Chairman of the Nobel Committee, Jørgen Watne Frydnes, announces Navanethem Pillay as the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize laureate at the Nobel Institute in Oslo, Norway, Friday, Oct. 9, 2026. (Javad Parsa/NTB Scanpix via AP)

FILE - U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights South African Navanethem Pillay prior to the 23rd session of the Human Rights Council, at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, May 27, 2013. (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP, File)

FILE - U.N. human rights chief Navanethem Pillay prior to the opening of a session of the Human Rights Council at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, June 18, 2012. (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP, File)

FILE - A Nobel diploma and medal are displayed, Dec. 8, 2020, during a ceremony in New York. (Angela Weiss/Pool Photo via AP, File)