Number and energy of cyclones and anticyclones

[verdigris]

How many cyclones and anticyclones are there in the northern hemisphere compared to the southern hemisphere, on a typical day of the year.Is the energy of cyclones/anticyclones in the north greater than the energy of the cyclones/anticylones in the south? How do the numbers of cyclones/anticyclones vary over a period of decades?

 

[jim hardy]

Surely that's tabulated someplace...
maybe not all in one place, though

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/images/indicator_figures/cyclones-figure1-2014.png
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/indicators/weather-climate/cyclones.htmlUS Weather Bureau would be a good site t peruse
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/climo/#ncy
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/climo/

Satellites of the 1960's greatly improved observation. Prior to that they relied on ship reports.

 

[D H]

How do the numbers of cyclones/anticyclones vary over a period of decades?

Some basic rules of thumb:

• The northern hemisphere gets hammered much harder than does the southern hemisphere.
  The Southern Ocean creates a lot of wind sheer that militates against cyclone formation.
• The Pacific Ocean gets hammered much harder than do the Atlantic or the Indian Oceans.
  The Pacific is big.
  
• The western Pacific Ocean gets hammered hardest of all.
  The Pacific is very, very big.

Taiwan, Okinawa, southeast Asia: They get hammered, hammered hard, and nowhere else compares. I recently traveled to Okinawa. The buildings there are concrete bunkers. They know how to protect themselves against typhoons.

Here's a nice image that illustrates things:

 

[rootone]

Just my guess, but I think the likely reason for why there is on average less intense storm activity in the southern hemisphere, is because there is less land.
The presence of land greatly influences the flow direction of sea and air currents causing air masses with very different characteristics to often form boundaries,
Those boundaries, (fronts), are regions where a lot of potential energy is available to be converted into kinetic energy, particularly in the form of convection, which is necessary for the formation of storm systems.
Also other phenomena such as warm moist air being cooled leads to condensation of water vapour resulting in rain.