Residents of Hawaii were anxious the past few days as Hurricane Felicia was on a track to threaten our western-most state.

Thursday saw Felicia rated as a Category-4 hurricane, just under the most dangerous of big storms. Luckily the storm lost some of its oomph as it traveled from the coast of Mexico towards Hawaii, and was expected Monday as a tropical storm or even tropical depression.

Certainly locals know what it’s like to monitor weather reports frequently as a storm approaches and to try to make decisions about how best to prepare. While decisions for locals about where to ride out a storm are difficult — do you stay or do you evacuate — consider in Hawaii it’s not as simple as just getting in your car and driving to another state to escape a storm’s wrath.

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Hopefully any damage from Felicia will be minimal.

In talking about a hurricane threatening Hawaii, discussions turned to just what is the difference between a hurricane and a typhoon?

It came up because we so often hear about typhoons hitting parts of Asia, and I wondered if hurricanes or typhoons threatened Hawaii?

I found a story USA Today wrote in September 2003 telling about the differences between hurricanes and typhoons, and between cyclones and tornadoes.

According to this report, both hurricanes and typhoons are actually tropical cyclones, which form over warm oceans.

“If the storm is over the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico or the Pacific Ocean east of the International Date Line, it’s called a hurricane. If the storm is over the Pacific west of the Date Line and north of the equator, it’s a typhoon. Elsewhere, such as in the South Pacific or the Indian Ocean, these storms are just called ‘cyclones.’”

So actually the same type of storm could be a hurricane, a typhoon or a cyclone depending upon where it is.

According to the same article, in the U.S. cyclones and tornadoes typically describe the same thing, especially in the mid-section of the U.S. Some still have cyclone cellars but the article said most meteorologists use the term tornado.

The USA Today article mentioned one storm to affect Hawaii that was at different times, because of its location, both a typhoon and a hurricane.

Hurricane or typhoon, cyclone or tornado — we don’t want or need any of these big storms around here. They all bring the same things — danger and trouble.

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Putting aside questions about animal rights, cruelty to animals and similar issues, did you see in the news recently about the 19 people arrested in Connecticut in connection with a bird-fighting operation?

While we’re certainly familiar here with cockfighting, typically involving specially bred fighting roosters, I was shocked to read that this bird-fighting ring involved canaries, with the police confiscating more than 100 of what I considered to be tiny birds.

I couldn’t find any info on how big canaries get but the only ones I’ve ever seen were pretty small, in pet stores or the occasional home as someone’s pet.

I’d think a canary of 5 or 6-inches in height would be typical of those I’ve seen.

It’s hard to believe many people would be interested, and presumably betting on, canary fights.

WILL CHAPMAN is publisher of The Daily Iberian.