Douglas Greene, age 14, of Baltimore, MD for his question:

Where does a hurricane begin?

The experts are not yet sure what starts a hurricane, but they have a good idea where it happens. The raging storm may hatch in any one of eight regions, all of them over warm, sultry oceans. There are two such hatching grounds in the Indian Ocean. Another area is off the northwest coast of Australia and another in the Pacific Ocean south of the equator.

The most frequent hurricanes are hatched in the Pacific Ocean between the Marshall Islands and the Philippines. There is one nesting ground in the Pacific and one in the Indian Ocean, both south of the equator. There is a small nest off the west coast of Mexico which could breed a storm which might strike our west coast. The hurricanes which strike our eastern and Gulf shores are bred in the Atlantic, off shore from the bulge of Africa.