recurvature

The change in course experienced by most hurricanes traveling across the Atlantic Ocean and typhoons in the Pacific, which, after heading west or west-northwest in their early stages, turn toward the northwest, north, and finally northeast, tracing overall a parabolic-shaped path. The meteorologist and priest Benito Viñes Martorell (1837-1893), former director of the Colegio de Belén, in Havana (Cuba), was the first to refer to this term in his second law of cyclonic translation, in which he related the latitude at which the hurricane experiences recurvature (or recurvatura) to the time of year.