Characteristics of Hurricanes: Analyses and calculations made from measurements by aircraft result in a fairly complete description.
Tropical cyclones derive their energy from the release of latent heat of condensation; they have been compared to simple heat engines (6), although they are not very efficient ones since only about 3 percent or less of the heat released within the cyclone is converted into kinetic energy. Tropical cyclones are warm-core, direct circulations in the sense that ascent takes place at warmer temperatures than does descent, thus converting heat energy into potential energy and potential energy to kinetic energy.
Miller
B I
BI