Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[roadman]

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.

The media is suffering the same fate as retail corporations that force Christmas down our throats earlier and earlier every year - being run by mid-1980s MBA graduates that, through very poor teaching, believe one thing and one thing only - that "profits, profits, profits, profits are our sole reason for existence".

The sad part with the media is that they aren't even obligated to tell the truth - and can make up at least a dozen excuses when they get it totally wrong.

[NE2]

The sad part with the media is that they aren't even obligated to tell the truth - and can make up at least a dozen excuses when they get it totally wrong.

Because Bengoatse.

[roadman]

The sad part with the media is that they aren't even obligated to tell the truth - and can make up at least a dozen excuses when they get it totally wrong.

Because Bengoatse.

That's the name of a journalist that covers events in Alanland - right?

[NE2]

The sad part with the media is that they aren't even obligated to tell the truth - and can make up at least a dozen excuses when they get it totally wrong.

Because Bengoatse.

That's the name of a journalist that covers events in Alanland - right?

Yeah. He specializes on gaping holes in Alanlandian embassy security.

[Brian556]

I have a newspaper printed just after Katrina. The headline reads "10,000 feared dead in New Orleans". Obviously, the number ended up being much lower. Six hundred something I think.

[KEK Inc.]

I have relatives from Danao City (near Cebu City).  How fucked did Cebu get?  Cebu City seems to be south of the eye, but Danao City is actually north of the city. 

[CNGL-Leudimin]

As a tropical cyclone tracker, I was really impressed with the power of typhoon Haiyan. However, I like to use 10 minute estimates for wind speeds instead of the 1 min both NHC and JTWC use, so I estimated the peak winds were "only" of 170 mph (275 km/h). By the way, the largest typhoon ever wasn't this one, the record holder is typhoon Tip of 1979.

PS: I started tracking these after... Hurricane Sandy.

[Roadmaestro95]

PS: I started tracking these after... Hurricane Sandy.

I think almost everyone in the Tri-State does now...now we are all "disappointed" by this year's hurricane season because THEY (meaning every stinkin meteorologist on TWC) said to expect a "Sandy" per year.

[CNGL-Leudimin]

Actually I had been looking after tropical cyclones for a while before I started tracking them seriously. I got tired of hurricane Nadine earlier. And yup, Atlantic has had a quiet season this year, which means that the rest of the tropics would be very active, as it happened with four category 5 typhoons (Usagi, Francisco, Lekima and Haiyan) and cyclone Phailin in Indian ocean, also a cat 5. The Atlantic does exactly the opposite the rest of the tropics do: In 2010 Atlantic was very active while the rest were relatively calm.

[1]

What makes this a typhoon and not a hurricane? Or a tycoon?

[Brandon]

What makes this a typhoon and not a hurricane? Or a tycoon?

Location.  It is effectively, if in the Atlantic or eastern Pacific, a hurricane.  And a category 5 hurricane at that.  Western Pacific cyclones are typhoons, and Indian cyclones are just that, cyclones.

[CNGL-Leudimin]

Being on the Pacific West of the dateline. There have been hurricanes that crossed the dateline and became typhoons, most notably the first hurricane then typhoon Ioke in 2006, which crossed the dateline while at category 5.

[wxfree]

As a tropical cyclone tracker, I was really impressed with the power of typhoon Haiyan. However, I like to use 10 minute estimates for wind speeds instead of the 1 min both NHC and JTWC use, so I estimated the peak winds were "only" of 170 mph (275 km/h). By the way, the largest typhoon ever wasn't this one, the record holder is typhoon Tip of 1979.

PS: I started tracking these after... Hurricane Sandy.

According to Wikipedia, the Japanese estimated the ten-minute wind as 145 mph, while Tip had a maximum ten-minute wind of 160 mph.  The maximum one-minute wind was estimated at 195, compared to Tip's 190.  The medal goes to a different storm depending on which measure you use.  Haiyan was at its maximum intensity at landfall.  Tip was much weaker at landfall.

"Largest" isn't a good term to use.  The largest was Tip, nearly 1,400 miles wide.  Haiyan was smaller.  Tip's pressure was significantly lower.  If you picture a hole with a certain depth and width, a hole with a smaller diameter and similarly steep sides isn't as deep.  It's the steepness of the sides that generates wind.  Haiyan wasn't as deep, but was smaller and similarly steep.  Tip, being larger, had to have lower pressure to produce that kind of gradient.

[sammi]

What makes this a typhoon and not a hurricane? Or a tycoon?

They are in fact the same phenomenon, so you can technically call Yolanda a hurricane. The difference (as has been pointed above) is the location, i.e. hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean, cyclones in the Indian, typhoons in the Pacific.

Also, the word typhoon comes from the Chinese word 台风 [tai²feng¹], which as far as I know doesn't really mean anything other than 'typhoon'.

[empirestate]

What makes this a typhoon and not a hurricane? Or a tycoon?

Location.  It is effectively, if in the Atlantic or eastern Pacific, a hurricane.

I have always understood them to be identical, but several definitions I've seen include qualifier words like "effectively", "virtually", "practically" and similar. Are there any actual differences—not mere tendencies, mind you—but qualities, say of a hurricane, that if it suddenly appeared in the western Pacific, it would not be termed a tyhpoon? And vice versa.

[english si]

There's an issue of lack of knowledge. Straight after something, if 10k people are missing, then the death toll might be 10k. The phrasing I heard was all 'could reach 10k', not saying the 10k as fact.

Of course, the use of 10k would help with getting people/countries to give aid.

[wxfree]

What makes this a typhoon and not a hurricane? Or a tycoon?

Location.  It is effectively, if in the Atlantic or eastern Pacific, a hurricane.

I have always understood them to be identical, but several definitions I've seen include qualifier words like "effectively", "virtually", "practically" and similar. Are there any actual differences—not mere tendencies, mind you—but qualities, say of a hurricane, that if it suddenly appeared in the western Pacific, it would not be termed a tyhpoon? And vice versa.

They're exactly the same thing.  Upon moving past the 180 meridian, a storm will be redesignated.  The generic term for all of them is "tropical cyclone."  In the Indian Ocean and in the Southern Hemisphere, they're called cyclones.  These also are the same thing.

Western Pacific storms tend to be the biggest, in part because the Pacific is bigger so storms have more time to grow.  I suspect there are other factors such as sea temperatures and wind patterns conducive to large and powerful storms there.  Hurricanes are classified on the Saffir-Simpson Scale, while typhoons are either typhoons or super typhoons.  A super typhoon is one with winds of at least 150 mph, equal to a category 5 or high-end 4.

Tropical cyclones may behave differently in different places, based on the prevailing environment, but they're all exactly the same species.  They're not "essentially" the same thing; they're exactly the same thing, living in different environments and given different names.

[CNGL-Leudimin]

By the way, any tropical cyclone can be classified in any scale. The Wikipedia has all cyclones listed with their Saffir-Simpson scale strenght along their basin's scale one, and during some time I tested the Australian scale with everything.

And now, spot the difference between a hurricane...


... and a typhoon:




Actually they are the same cyclone: Ioke 2006.

[empirestate]

Tropical cyclones may behave differently in different places, based on the prevailing environment, but they're all exactly the same species.  They're not "essentially" the same thing; they're exactly the same thing, living in different environments and given different names.

Such was my understanding. That's why I get so confused when those words creep in.