Prepare yourselves for the second coming of Katrina, because you can bet that this storm will be hyped as an indicator of “global warming”.
As of this writing, the storm is in the process of making landfall in the Philippines and it is moving west at 20-25 knots and estimated winds of 170 knots (195mph).
Hurricane expert Dr. Ryan Maue has been monitoring the Super Typhoon for the past several days and remarked about the historic nature of Haiyan. In this upper echelon of cyclone intensity, it is difficult to assign rankings or compare Typhoons due to inhomogeneous observing networks and tools. But it’s fair to say that Super Typhoon Haiyan is as intense as a tropical cyclone can get.
Presented at AMS Tropical in 2004, Hoarau et al. asked if there were any Typhoons stronger than Tip (1979). Two likely candidates emerged including Super Typhoon Angela from 1995 which has been compared with today’s storm. Satellite estimates through Dvorak technique yielded an intensity of 90 m/s or 175 knots which is greater than Tip’s maximum of 165 knots. A quick comparison between Angela and Haiyan at maximum intensity suggests the latter is actually stronger. Dvorak estimates are at the top of the scale — T = 8.0 and even touched 8.1, which according to this chart, means 170-knot maximum 1-minute sustained winds. That is Category 5 with three pluses.
The actual best-tracks have Tip at 165-knots and there are many others that exceeded 155-knots. Here’s a handy list of advisories that met or exceeded 155 since 1950. The JTWC best tracks are increasingly uncertain prior to the satellite era (1979) but there is some confidence primarily due to routine aircraft recon from 1944-1987 in the Western Pacific. Aside from field studies (e.g. TPARC) run by NASA in coordination with neighboring nations, routine hurricane hunting does not occur outside of the Western Hemisphere.
Global landfalls were discussed in a recent J. Climate paper by Weinkle, Maue and Pielke Jr. Weinkle_2012.04
![vis0[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/vis01.jpg?quality=83)
Above: as morning breaks in the Philippines, one of the first two visible satellite images
Above: animation from IntelliWeather.com showing the last 12 hours of motion as of 1PM PST 11/7/13. – may take up to a minute to load and animate, depending on your connection speed.
With winds like that, expect to see complete devastation as it makes landfall. That of course will be hyped into an AGW caused storm, just like Katrina. Al Gore and Bill McKibben are already testing lies language on Twitter. Bear in mind that we have a very short historical record of Typhoon strength, and any claims that this is the strongest storm ever need to be qualified with that fact. Nobody has any credible record of typhoon strength back more than a few decades.
I’ll add updates and additional content to this article today – Anthony
===============================================================
UPDATE1: NOAA image as Haiyan prepares to make landfall:
UPDATE2: Haiyan is expected to make it all the way to China. Maue on Twitter:
12z ECMWF model shows #Haiyan maintaining deep central pressure of 947 mb as it moves quickly west thru S. China Sea
UPDATE3: Radar image from Cebu City shows the eye of Haiyan approaching, click image for animation:
UPDATE4: Dr. Heidi Cullen of Climate Central wins the “First Haiyan BS award” with this missive.
RT @NOAA: What's fueling #SuperTyphoon #Haiyan's intensity? Deep warm water: http://t.co/tfNWljssms Via @NOAASatellites #climate
— Heidi Cullen (@HeidiCullen) November 7, 2013
As Bob Tisdale observes, there’s nothing to support this along the track of Haiyan:
Lots of the typical BS accumulating already about Typhoon Haiyan. Let’s push some of it aside and present the sea surface temperature anomalies for the early portion of Haiyan’s storm track.
There was nothing unusually warm about the sea surface temperature anomalies for the early portion of Typhoon Haiyan’s storm track last week, the week of Wednesday October 30, 2013. We’ll have to wait for Monday to see what the values were for this week.
UPDATE5: Jeff Masters, makes this claim:
Super Typhoon Haiyan has made landfall. According to PAGASA, Haiyan came ashore at 4 am local time (20 UTC) November 7, 2013 near Guiuan, on the Philippine island of Samar. At the time, Guiuan reported sustained 10-minute average winds of 96 mph, with a pressure of 977 mb. Contact has since been lost with the city. Two hours before landfall, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center assessed Haiyan’s sustained winds at 195 mph, gusting to 235 mph, making it the 4th strongest tropical cyclone in world history. Satellite loops show that Haiyan weakened only slightly, if at all, in the two hours after JTWC’s advisory, so the super typhoon likely made landfall with winds near 195 mph. This makes Haiyan the strongest tropical cyclone on record to make landfall in world history. The previous record was held by the Atlantic’s Hurricane Camille of 1969, which made landfall in Mississippi with 190 mph winds.
Sorry, no. Super Typhoon Ida in 1958 is said to have central pressure of 877mb and 200 mph 1 minute sustained winds: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon_Ida_%281958%29
C. L. Jordan (September 1959). “A Reported Sea Level Pressure of 877 MB.” (PDF). Monthly Weather Review. Retrieved 2011-11-23.
FOOTNOTE: A milestone – this is story is number 10,000 of published posts on WUWT.
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If one is familiar with Chaos theory, who is to say that the disturbance of air by windmills has not contributed to the typhoon? I would not but that statement is about as logical as any from AGW theory.
Just heard news from San Remigio,northern Cebu. 90% of the town houses are damaged ,the roof ripped off the church,our beach house completely destroyed, nothing seen like it in living memory.Thankfully it hit at low tide otherwise the damage would have been even worse.
Patrick says:
November 8, 2013 at 4:04 am
“No disrespect to anyone however, I think you will find, so far, only 3 people are reported to have died in this storm. You will also find more people die every day in poverty or raking through rubbish tips where walls of rubbish bury those trying to eek out a living, especially in Manila.
Either way, this is yet another weather event being blown, literally, blown out of all proportion in the MSM. Just like fires here in Australia.”
Ready to retract and apologize now?
The Mirror newspaper in the UK says the death toll is 1200 now.
Early unconfirmed Red Cross reports are now saying the death toll in the Philippines could be over 1,000.
As tragic as that number is, the media will obviously blame this storm and these deaths on CAGW, which is both absurd and immoral.
This was a devastating storm but most of these deaths were caused by the Philippines’ awful infrastructure, nonexistent building codes, government corruption and extreme poverty. I’m sure most of the deaths were in the poorest islands of the Philippines, where houses are made of cheap wood held together by chicken wire and a few rusty nails in rusted corrugated roofs.
I’m not making fun of the Philippine people, who are some of the kindest people on Earth, but live in one of the most impoverished countries in the world due to massive government corruption and cronyism.
Making energy more expensive with CO2 taxes/regulations won’t save lives, it will ultimately lead to more poverty, less infrastructure, poorer built buildings and more deaths from storms in the future.
craigm350 says:
November 8, 2013 at 2:55 pm
Ryan Maue firing on Twitter :
– First of many garbage articles to come.
a href=https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws&authuser=0&q=typhoon+climate+change&oq=typhoon+climate+change&gs_l=news-cc.3..43j43i53.10074.19257.0.19433.22.6.0.16.16.0.77.435.6.6.0…0.0…1ac.1.Blf5O6XscZQ>As predicted. Some highlights from the articles:
Climate change is loading the dice for extreme weather events like Haiyan. The storms strength and rapid development have been aided by unusually warm ocean waters and warm, moist air (warm air holds more water vapor than cold). Global warming also causes sea level rise, increasing the risk of flooding from storm surges, especially in low-lying areas like much of the Philippines. Carbon dioxide is the steroids that leads to grand-slam storms like Haiyan. Haiyan should be a five-alarm wake up call for negotiators in Warsaw and the capitals that sent them here.
Hurricane researchers contacted by Climate Central said Haiyan is an example of the type of extreme storm that may become more frequent as the climate continues to warm.
We don’t yet know the death toll or damage done, but we do know that the strength of tropical storms such as Haiyan or Bopha is linked to sea temperature. As the oceans warm with climate change, there is extra energy in the system. Storms may not be increasing in frequency but Pacific ocean waters are warming faster than expected, and there is a broad scientific consensus that typhoons are now increasing in strength.
Super-Typhoon Haiyan is almost like Katrina and Sandy combined.
The Philippines is battered by an average of 20 major storms or typhoons each year, many of them deadly, but scientists have said climate change may be increasing their ferocity and frequency.
More to come. You can bank on it.
Screwed up the link. Take 2.
Galileonardo…. you clearly have not studied storms in any detail whatsoever….. there is no trend-towards-now for more violent storms, anywhere on earth. Storm extreme stats are scattered evenly throughout history. “scientists have said climate change may be increasing their ferocity and frequency”… this is utter rubbish. There are NOT more frequent , nor are they more violent. There is not a single shred of evidence to suggest they are. So “scientists” who state that are idiots, not scientists.
jonny old boy says:
November 9, 2013 at 10:29 am
Galileonardo…. you clearly have not studied storms in any detail whatsoever…
Mr. Old Boy, you clearly have not studied my history here (click my name to get an idea of where I stand on AGW). When I said “more to come” I didn’t mean the super-duper intense extreme superstorms, I meant the “utter rubbish” that inevitably follows from the media and activist pseudoscientists in the wake of “extreme weather” as correctly predicted by Mr. Watts and Ryan in this post. Sorry if you misunderstood. There will undoubtedly be more rubbish to come, and for that matter, more extreme weather as has always been the case.
Hey Patrick, got nothin’ to say?
stuart L
How did you weather the storm? Stuart?
Hoping you did ok.
Thank you
what the , , ,omg…