Short answers, pulled from the story.
A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system with a low-pressure area, strong winds, and heavy rain that forms over warm ocean waters. It derives energy from the evaporation of water which condenses into clouds when moist air rises and cools to saturation.
Tropical cyclones tend to develop during the summer but have been noted in nearly every month in most tropical cyclone basins. An average of 86 tropical cyclones of tropical storm intensity form annually worldwide with 47 reaching strengths higher than 74 miles per hour.
Hurricanes occur in the Atlantic Ocean or northeastern Pacific Ocean while typhoons happen in the northwestern Pacific Ocean. In the Indian Ocean and South Pacific comparable storms are referred to as tropical cyclones and South Atlantic tropical cyclones are very rare due to consistently strong wind shear.
Between 1979 and 2017 there was a global increase in the proportion of tropical cyclones of Category 3 and higher on the Saffir Simpson scale. A 2019 study indicates that climate change has been driving the observed trend of rapid intensification of tropical cyclones in the Atlantic basin.
Polar-orbiting weather satellites were first launched by the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration in 1960 but were not declared operational until 1965. Routine aircraft reconnaissance started in both the Atlantic and Western Pacific basin in the mid-1940s which provided ground truth data before satellite technology.