Typhoon vs hurricane and more hard times in Asia

                                            

How about the difference between a hurricane and a typhoon. 

Both are tropical weather systems with their difference being  in what part of the planet they happen in.

Tropical weather systems that happen in the Atlantic basin with winds in excess of 74 miles an hour are hurricanes while this occurrence in the northwest Pacific / west of the international date line are Typhoons.

Typhoon Haiyan (going on now) due it's intensity is in it's own class and weather services are classifying it as a super typhoon due to it's intensity with sustained wind speeds in excess of 175 miles per hour and gusts of over 200 miles an hour, yikes.  For me it's hard to put this in perspective so I got in my truck and at 50 I stuck my head out the window and in my mind multiplied it by four, yup, yikes again. Compared to a class 5 hurricane  such as Sandy, with winds of 156 miles per hour and over.

With winds of the magnitude of typhoon Haiyan, combined with heavy rain and breaking surf of over 20 foot that just struck in the Philippines I just can't imagine what the survivors in places like Tacloban are feeling like. Families and friends unaccounted for, lack of proper drinking water, food shortages, home and all their possessions gone and surrounded with the mass destruction the typhoon left in its wake.

Haiyan's storm tract had it coming to shore in the northern part of Vietnam and heading for the China border.  It is said that Vietnam evacuated over 500,000 people from the path of the storm and so far only 6 deaths are reported dead and another 8 from a fishing boat along with the boat are missing.  On land fall the typhoons winds had diminished to the 100 miles per hour range, while dropping 4 to 8 inches of rain.  Though thinking back on my car experiment, even at 50 miles my eyes were watering, so 100 is still a very impressive number and 4 to 8 inches of rain in one shot is big.  I'm not that familiar with the north of Vietnam but if Saigon received rain in that volume the only way to get around most of the city would be by boat.