Disaster Area: Wind Power: The Words Beneath Your Wings

Any storm that revolves and looks like a huge spiral when seen from above is a cyclone. This includes hurricanes and typhoons, both on this list.

Draught can also be spelled draft. If you have an old house where cold air leaks in, you can describe it as drafty.

Strong winds above 30 miles per hour on or near the ocean are known as gale force winds. gales are most often measured using the Beaufort scale, which ranks winds on a scale from 0–12 and has beautifully poetic descriptions of weather conditions. The word's origin is unknown, though it may derive from the Old Norse galenn, meaning "mad" or "frantic."

A hurricane is a cyclone in the Atlantic, Carribbean, or Northeast Pacific with sustained winds over 74 miles per hour. Each season, which runs from late summer through the fall, hurricanes are given names in alphabetical order.

From the Portuguese monção, which in turn derives from the Arabic mawsim, meaning "season," monsoon refers to both a strong seasonal wind in Asia and the steady, heavy rain that accompanies it.

Squall's origins are unclear. It may relate to squeal, since besides describing a storm that springs up quickly it can also refer to a baby's screaming cries.

Tempest originated in the Latin word tempus, meaning "time," specifically in the sense that a season is a period of time and each season has different weather. Tempestas means "season," "weather," or "storm."

Typhoon, unusually, has two origins. tufan is an Urdu word, from Persian and Arabic, for a violent storm. Tai fung is Cantonese dialect for ta feng, literally "big wind." Either way, it describes the same sort of storm that hurricane does, but in a different part of the world.

If you catch a whiff of something good cooking downstairs, that smell wafted to your nose. Waft originally meant to transport something, usually across water, using wind power as in a sailing ship.

In Ancient Greek, zephyros referred to the west wind. Now zephyr means a gentle breeze.