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[ET21]

The largest typhoon ever is pummeling the Philippines as this is posted. Winds are 195 mph with gusts pushing 240 mph. Think of it as a 1,000 mile wide EF-4 to EF-5 tornado equivalent (with heavy rain and an extremely large storm surge to boot)   

Added the appropriate Hurricane message icon -Alex

[1]

Any color key?

[ET21]

This is infrared, so it measures the temps of the cloud tops. Brighter colors, the taller the cloud or cloud deck is. Since most cyclones across the globe are warm-core systems (they're basically heat engines), they usually come out orange, red, and sometimes white on these satellite images. EDIT: This means that the cloud tops are quite cold

Haiyan is basically powerful across the entire storm, but note how brighter the red gets as you approach the eye. That mid-rim region and the eye wall itself is where you are getting the 195 mph winds

Here's an example of another infrared image of Haiyan with the scale for you The further right you go on the scale, the taller the clouds are

[wxfree]

That's a beautiful beast.  Tropical cyclones make for some of the best satellite images.  I remember John Hope on The Weather Channel pointing out a hurricane in the eye of which you could see the shadow cast by eye wall on the opposite eye wall on the visible imagery.  In another hurricane, you could briefly see the ocean when the satellite was looking straight down the eye.

[wxfree]

Any color key?

In the color key in the animated sequence, what's being shown is temperature.  Colors on the right of the scale are coldest.  In order to get extreme cold you need two things: thick clouds that block the heat coming up from the surface, and high cloud tops, which are cold due to being very high in the atmosphere, where it's colder.  If you look at the first image, you can see the color intensity quickly drops (temperatures rise) in the eye.  That's where the clouds are thin and the heat from the ocean is being seen by the satellite.

[NE2]

That's a beautiful beast.

The Hiroshima mushroom cloud is much prettier.

[wxfree]

That's a beautiful beast.

The Hiroshima mushroom cloud is much prettier.

I don't think I'd agree with that.  While both are beautiful as displays of the physical principles involved in their creation and evolution, I think there's a fundamental difference in that the cyclone is a creation of the earth, displaying the nature and behavior of the earth and universe: usually subtle and occasionally very violent, but always organized and with a purpose, while the mushroom cloud is a creation of man, expressing his madness.  On the other hand, I don't know that I'd consider man, a creation of the universe, to be inherently less organized or purposeful than the universe, but I think he's a much more concentrated form of the universe's subtlety and violence.  Because we don't fully understand the universe itself, with things all spread out and seemingly unrelated, even moreso seeing the same extreme disparities of behavior in such a concentrated form as a single entity or species makes that entity or species look chaotic.

[ARMOURERERIC]

Jefferson Airplane wants their MTV video back.

[Billy F 1988]

The largest typhoon ever is pummeling the Philippines as this is posted. Winds are 195 mph with gusts pushing 240 mph. Think of it as a 1,000 mile wide EF-4 to EF-5 tornado equivalent (with heavy rain and an extremely large storm surge to boot)   

Added the appropriate Hurricane message icon -Alex

Holy shit! That thing looks like ten times Katrina! Let's pray this doesn't hit our neck of the woods! Let's also pray that the people in the Philippines have heeded the warnings and had gotten out of there as much as possible. I would not want to be down in an area where you get that big of a punch. When Andrew landed in '92, it was a 160+ CAT 4 hurricane. Katrina had a similar speed between 140 to 160 MPH, once considered a CAT 5 but then lowered when it made landfall, but still packed a wallop of a punch along the Louisiana coastline and in New Orleans in 2005. When Sandy made landfall last year, it was like Katrina, but then it merged with a north-east moving storm and clobbered the northeast U.S. Obviously here, and even in the loop I say the Philippines are getting clobbered heavily with that kind of motion, that kind of strength and speed. You'd have to guess that the millibar measures are somewhere in the ballpark of 930-920 MB, maybe the high 910's. If if's anything beyond that, boy, they'd better ready for a washout.

[sammi]

Good evening, this is 630 News. I am Sammi Fernandez. Off to our top story: chaos in the Philippines as one of the largest and most powerful storms in history causes massive damage to the archipelago.

The typhoon Haiyan (海燕), also given the local designation Yolanda, made landfall at 4:30 am in the province of Eastern Samar on Friday with winds of up to 315 km/h and gusts of up to 380 km/h, causing flooding and cutting off communications in several provinces in the eastern Visayas region.

At least three people were killed and seven injured, according to a report released by the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, but it is likely that there are more casualties. Thousands more are currently staying in emergency evacuation shelters across at least 25 provinces.

The storm has weakened significantly since entering the archipelago, now with maximum sustained winds of 175 km/h and gusts of up to 210 km/h. At 4:00 am PHT on Saturday, the center of the storm was located about 400 km west of San Jose, Occidental Mindoro province, and is now heading west towards Vietnam travelling at 41 km/h.

Haiyan is the second category 5 storm to hit the islands since Usagi (Odette) in September.

Also, do we seriously have a hurricane icon? >_>

[flaroads]

Also, do we seriously have a hurricane icon? >_>

Yes, I created it last year around the time of hurricane Issac. 

[CentralCAroadgeek]

As a Filipino myself, this storm has hit me pretty close to home. I just hope everyone is alright over there and it would be a somewhat easy recovery.

[ET21]

Also, do we seriously have a hurricane icon? >_>

Yes, I created it last year around the time of hurricane Issac. 

  If only I had looked through the icons.

[Scott5114]

As a Filipino myself, this storm has hit me pretty close to home. I just hope everyone is alright over there and it would be a somewhat easy recovery.

Early reports are estimating at least 10,000 dead (with 1,700 confirmed dead).

[kurumi]

You can donate to Philippine Red Cross using Paypal here: http://www.redcross.org.ph/donate. Conversion right now is about 43 pesos to 1 USD. Paypal appears not to "Thomas Cook" you on the exchange which is a pleasant surprise.

(I have family over there as well... close relations are OK, but not sure about the more distant cousins of cousins yet)

[sammi]

My dad's cousin's family is inviting us over to Chicago for Christmas this year. We're supposed to have a Secret Santa-type thing, but because of what happened recently, they are contemplating the idea of instead donating our budget to the relief effort. We agreed, but we are still waiting on their decision.

US$1 = ₱43, C$1 = ₱42.

Anyone else here with relatives in the Philippines? (I have family down there, but they're far enough north to only experience light rains, so they should be fine.)

[CentralCAroadgeek]

I'm kinda the same about your last statement, Naga City, where a lot of my relatives live, apparently only got the rain and nothing really that bad.

But just go south to Visayas. That place got pretty beaten up...

[sammi]

Update on the official death toll. 10,000 was an overestimation; official government reports have dialed it back to 1,774 1,833. Around 2,800 2,623 are injured, 84 missing, ~500,000 homeless.

Also, I just found this, a map of how strong the effect was in each province. PSWS is the Philippine Storm Warning Signal, which quantifies the expected strength of the storm in the area, including wind speeds and an estimate of time before the storm arrives. (I honestly didn't know there even was a signal #4 until now.)


A little geography lesson.

• The two almost-adjoining islands at center-right are Leyte on the left and Samar on the right. Yolanda made landfall in the town of Guiuan [ghee-one], which is the small group of islands south of Samar island. Taclóban City (with emphasis on the second syllable, too many reporters pronounce it with emphasis on the first) is on the northeast part of Leyte island, the one almost attached to Samar.
• Naga City is in Camarines Sur, which is the province in purple, top-center, with an "arm" pointing east. CentralCAroadgeek's relatives only experienced a signal #2, which meant 60-100 km/h winds.
• Manila Bay is to upper-left, Metro Manila is to the east. They also experienced signal #2.
• The province in light green, touching the upper edge of the map, is Zambales. My home province, La Union, is two provinces north of that, which implies that no storm warning signal has been set. Even then, they experienced light rains and winds, but not a lot of damage, if any at all.

[realjd]

You can donate to Philippine Red Cross using Paypal here: http://www.redcross.org.ph/donate. Conversion right now is about 43 pesos to 1 USD. Paypal appears not to "Thomas Cook" you on the exchange which is a pleasant surprise.

(I have family over there as well... close relations are OK, but not sure about the more distant cousins of cousins yet)

Donated. Thanks for the link! It felt weird typing a 4 digit number into a PayPal window...

[sammi]

It felt weird typing a 4 digit number into a PayPal window...

Am I missing something? What is this 4-digit number?

EDIT: An amount in ₱?

[Roadmaestro95]

Worst part about the Philippines right now is that they are getting soaked by tropical rains, which will not stop until Sunday, and CNN said it could impede efforts to help with aid and finding people. However, and although I'm not of any decent, I can understand how natural disasters affect one's home, but it has also shown me how much we cannot take for granted with what we have. Although Sandy was nothing compared to Haiyan, it still reminds me of how powerful Mother Nature can be, and that should never be forgotten.
I helped in the devastated areas with my dad in Long Beach and the Rockaways, and even close to where I live down in Mastic Beach, and I've seen devastation (to an extent). I know it is impossible for me to physically help the people in the Philippines right now, but if anybody does read this, please do donate money to the Red Cross, because they need as much aid as possible and it seems that this storm is not getting as much publicity and aid as previous natural disasters, such as the Haiti earthquake.
http://www.redcross.org/

[realjd]

It felt weird typing a 4 digit number into a PayPal window...

Am I missing something? What is this 4-digit number?

EDIT: An amount in ₱?

Yep. Since the exchange rate is 40-some pesos to the dollar, I donated over 1000 pesos. It just felt weird typing in a payment in the thousands since I'm used to dealing with currencies like the USD and the GBP.

[ET21]

Update on the official death toll. 10,000 was an overestimation

To back up this, NEVER trust the media within the first 24 hours with death numbers. They over-hype anything just to get ratings

[sammi]

Update on the official death toll. 10,000 was an overestimation

To back up this, NEVER trust the media within the first 24 hours with death numbers. They over-hype anything just to get ratings

This wasn't even from the media, this was from the government. I find it exponentially more embarrassing.

EDIT: I'm not getting sufficient data to determine the source of the 10,000 figure, but a news article says it was made by the government of Leyte province, and referred to the number of deaths only in that province. Also, death toll as of 7am PHT (6pm EST): 2344 dead, 3804 injured, 79 missing.

[agentsteel53]

yep, I remember the Moore OK tornado from May having the death toll jump from 2 to 93 to 51 in the span of about 2 hours.  I think it ended up being 23.

I also remember the report being "minor damage to I-35; ODOT to issue statement" at the exact time that, just behind the closed caption, the live feed was showing a two-mile-wide tornado bearing down on Moore. 

in conclusion, the media is run by idiots.