Super Typhoon Yolanda (as Haiyan is called in the Philippines) is off the scale. The Dvorak storm intensity scale is inadequate to describe a storm as ferocious as this one is.
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Super Typhoon Yolanda is strongest storm ever to make landfall in recorded history
By TJ DIMACALI,GMA News
Citing figures from the US-based Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC), Masters said that Yolanda's average strength of 195 mph (314 kph) at landfall beat the previous record set in 1969 by Hurricane Camille, which carried 190 mph (306 kph) winds when it landed in Mississippi in the US.>
Off the charts
Meanwhile, meteorologist and weather journalist Eric Holthaus was awed that Yolanda went off the charts as it approached the Philippines.
He pointed out that the US' National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) had issued a bulletin saying that the storm's intensity could no longer be tracked using the widely-used Dvorak storm intensity scale.
"DVORAK TECHNIQUE MAKES NO ALLOWANCE FOR AN EYE EMBEDDED SO DEEPLY IN CLOUD TOPS AS COLD AS (THIS)," the bulletin said.
"That means Haiyan (approached) the theoretical maximum intensity for any storm, anywhere. Put another way, the most commonly used satellite-based intensity scale just wasn’t designed to handle a storm this strong," Holthaus explained.
"(I've) never seen that before," he added.
This will be the Central Philippines' second didaster in less than a month. A 7.2 magnitude quake struck the region on Oct. 15 with the epicenter on Bohol Island. Ten of thousands are currently living in tents on Bohol and the surrounding islands as Super Typhoon Yolanda is bearing down on their region, the home to 25 million people.
I will be leaving for the Visayas (as the Central Philippines is called) ten days from now to work on disaster relief with All Hands Volunteers on Bohol island. I set up a personal fundraising page: Help All Hands Volunteers cover the costs of my three weeks working with Project Bohol
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Update
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At least 33 dead as super typhoon Yolanda pounds central Philippines
(Updated 11:06 p.m.)One of the most intense typhoons on record whipped the Philippines Friday, killing at least 33 people and terrifying millions as monster winds tore roofs off buildings and giant waves washed away flimsy homes.
Super Typhoon Haiyan smashed into coastal communities on the central island of Samar, about 600 kilometers southeast of Manila, before dawn on Friday with maximum sustained winds of about 315 kilometers an hour.
"We've had reports of uprooted trees, very strong winds... and houses made of light materials being damaged," Philippine Red Cross chief Gwendolyn Pang told AFP on Friday afternoon as Haiyan swept across the archipelago's central and southern islands.
At least 30 dead in Tacloban, Palo in Leyte
Power and communications in the three large island provinces of Samar, Leyte and Bohol were almost completely down but the government and telephone service providers promised to restore them within 24 hours.
Authorities warned that more than 12 million people were at risk, including residents of Cebu City, which has a population of about 2.5 million.
"Power is off all across the island and the streets are deserted," said Lionel Dosdosa, an International Organization for Migration coordinator on Bohol island, the epicenter of an October 15 earthquake that killed 222 people and displaced hundreds of thousands.
At least 5,000 survivors were still living in tents on Bohol, and they were moved to schools that had been turned into evacuation centers.
Typhoon Haiyan makes Sandy, Katrina look like weak cousins
Latest reports put the death toll is at 56.
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