"Super Typhoon Haiyan was a terrifyingly intense storm…and so were many others around the globe in the last decade."
"Earlier this month, Super Typhoon Haiyan stunned the meteorological community. The Navy’sJoint Typhoon Warning Center, which tracked the storm, estimated its maximum 1-minute sustained wind speeds at more than 195 miles per hour based on satellite imagery. If confirmed, that would exceed the official wind speed estimates for all other hurricanes and typhoons in the modern period. (Prior to 1969 some Pacific storms were recorded as stronger, but these measurements are now considered too high).
But here’s the thing: Haiyan isn’t the globe’s only record-breaking hurricane in recent years. Even as scientists continue to study and debate whether global warming is making hurricanes worse, hurricanes have continued to set new intensity records. Indeed, a Climate Desk analysis of official hurricane records finds that many of the globe’s hurricane basins—including the Atlantic, the Northwest Pacific, the North Indian, the South Indian, and the South Pacific—have witnessed (or, in the case of Haiyan and the Northwest Pacific, arguably witnessed) some type of new hurricane intensity record since the year 2000. What’s more, a few regions that aren’t usually considered major hurricane basis have also seen mammoth storms of late."