Typhoon Haiyan

Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda)

Typhoon (JMA scale)
Category 5 (Saffir–Simpson scale)
Typhoon Haiyan at peak intensity on November 7
Formed	November 3, 2013
Dissipated	November 11, 2013
Highest winds	10-minute sustained: 230 km/h (145 mph) 1-minute sustained: 315 km/h (195 mph)
Lowest pressure	895 hPa (mbar); 26.43 inHg
Fatalities	6,340 confirmed, 1,061 missing
Damage	$2.86 billion (2013 USD) (Preliminary total)
Areas affected	Caroline Islands, Philippines, South China, Vietnam
Part of the 2013 Pacific typhoon season

Typhoon Haiyan, known as Super Typhoon Yolanda in the Philippines, was one of the most intense tropical cyclones on record, which devastated portions of Southeast Asia, particularly the Philippines, on November 8, 2013. It is the deadliest Philippine typhoon on record, killing at least 6,300 people in that country alone. Haiyan is also the strongest storm recorded at landfall. In January 2014, bodies were still being found.

The thirtieth named storm of the 2013 Pacific typhoon season, Haiyan originated from an area of low pressure several hundred kilometers east-southeast of Pohnpei in the Federated States of Micronesia on November 2, 2013. Tracking generally westward, environmental conditions favored tropical cyclogenesis and the system developed into a tropical depression the following day. After becoming a tropical storm and attaining the name Haiyan at 0000 UTC on November 4, the system began a period of rapid intensification that brought it to typhoon intensity by 1800 UTC on November 5. By November 6, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) assessed the system as a Category 5-equivalent super typhoon on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale; the storm passed over the island of Kayangel in Palau shortly after attaining this strength.

Thereafter, it continued to intensify; at 1200 UTC on November 7, the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) upgraded the storm's maximum ten-minute sustained winds to 230 km/h (145 mph), the highest in relation to the cyclone. The Hong Kong Observatory put the storm's maximum ten-minute sustained winds at 285 km/h (180 mph) prior to landfall in the central Philippines, while the China Meteorological Administration estimated the maximum two-minute sustained winds at the time to be around 78 m/s (280 km/h or 175 mph). At the same time, the JTWC estimated the system's one-minute sustained winds to 315 km/h (195 mph), unofficially making Haiyan the strongest tropical cyclone ever observed based on wind speed, a record which would then be surpassed by Hurricane Patricia in 2015 at 345 km/h (215 mph). Haiyan is also the strongest tropical cyclone in the Eastern Hemisphere by wind speed; several others have recorded lower central pressure readings. Several hours later, the eye of the cyclone made its first landfall in the Philippines at Guiuan, Eastern Samar. Gradually weakening, the storm made five additional landfalls in the country before emerging over the South China Sea. Turning northwestward, the typhoon eventually struck northern Vietnam as a severe tropical storm on November 10. Haiyan was last noted as a tropical depression by the JMA the following day.