Typhoons

United States citizens exhaled a sigh of relief last week when hurricane forcasters downgraded the severity of their predictions for this year's hurricane season. The National Ocean and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA), projected a total of 12 to 15 named storms, down from their May prediction of 13 to 16 named storms. The odds are that the U.S. will also experience fewer hurricanes than last year.

But Asia is not faring as well. Yesterday "super typhoon" Saomoai struck China. The deaths and casualties from this storm continue to increase after Saomai came ashore with winds speed estimated at landfall to be 216 km/hour. Between one and two million people were evacuated according to various government sources. A weather bureau in Zhejiang said it was "the most powerful storm to strike China since the founding of the communist government in 1949".

This season has been devastating for Asia as warm Pacific ocean temperature and atmospheric conditions favor the formation of large storms. The similiar perfect storm conditions occurred in the Atlantic last year, while Asia saw fewer hurricanes than usual. So far this year Asia has seen at least eight major storms including these:

• Typhoon Prapiroon came ashore in southern China a week ago.
• Typhoon Maria was downgraded to a tropical storm and did not hit land.
• Typhoon Kaemi hit Taiwan and the Fujian coast at the end of July, and over 100 people were reported dead by China's press.
• Typhoon Bilis was also a super-typhoon before it was down-graded to a tropical storm when it struck China on July 14th. The death toll from that Bilis was over 600.
• Typhoon Ewiniar struck South Korea and China, earlier in the year.
• Typhoon Chanchu hit on May 18, at least 40 days earlier than most years.

While China is recovering the most recent storms, the good news is that meterologists are predicting that the tropical depression that was once Typhoon Bopha will fizzle. NASA released a photo at the beginning of the week which showed typhoons Bopha, Saomai and Maria over the Pacific ocean, and before Saomai gained speed it was Bopha that looked most threatening. The original impressive photo is here. Jeff Schmaltz, of the MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center, is credited with the photo.

The destruction for these storms this year is hard to calculate. The People's Daily online reports that according to the Red Cross 1,699 people in China and left 415 missing before the latest typhoon. The storms have cost millions of dollars in damage across Asia. But many of the affected areas are remote, countries have different reporting methods and North Korea, which apparently lost hundreds of lives during typhoon flooding, refuses to do anything but downplay the numbers for casualties and amount of damage.

In contrast to the elusive record of death and destruction of the storms, is the winsome naming schema. The names of the storms and meanings are highlighted in almost every article. The naming is a collaboration between countries, with different countries submitting names for the storms. All countries have particular standards, in the U.S. they are given names, in Korea they are plants or animals.The lovely names belie the destructive storms. Saomai is named for the morning star Venus. Kaemi is the Korean word for ant. Chanchu is "pearl", in Macau. Ewiniar means "storm god" in one of the Micronesian tribal languages. Prapiroon means "God of rain" in Thai. Maria is a girl's name, submitted by the U.S. Bopha means flower, and is a girl's name in Khmer. Bilis means "speed" or "swift" ( it was called Florita in the Phillipines). Most of the hurricanes have different names as they pass through different countries. The next storm apparently will be named Wukong for the monkey king hero of the Chinese story.