Less than two weeks after a typhoon barrelled across the Philippines, another, more powerful, system has smashed into the northeast of the country.
The first system was called Sarika in the international community. Confusingly, the Philippines refuses to use the international naming convention and insist on using their own names. The storm was known as Karen, in the Philippines.
The storm rapidly intensified from a tropical storm into a powerful typhoon with winds of 210kph (130mph) in just 30 hours. If the storm had been situated in the waters around the Americas, it would have been classed as a dangerous Category Four hurricane on the five-point Saffir-Simpson Scale.
It passed very close to some of the smaller islands in the Bicol region and in Calabarzon before slamming into Luzon. The storm brought a phenomenal amount of rain; Virac in Catanduanes received 560mm (22 inches) of rain on Friday and Saturday. At least two people are known to have died as the storm raged. Trees and power lines were torn down and torrential rain caused flooding.
The Philippines is one of the poorest countries in the world. A large proportion of the locals live in flimsy housing, with poor infrastructure which offer little protection against the elements. This means that the locals are often badly hit by typhoons that might not cause as much damage in other parts of the world.
After raging across Luzon, the storm headed out over the South China Sea. It made a beeline towards southern China’s island province of Hainan, where half a million people were evacuated ahead of the storm’s landfall. As the typhoon moved northwards it disintegrated over northern Vietnam and southern parts of mainland China, bringing torrential rain and major flooding.
Before Typhoon Sarika had even hit China, the next storm had developed to the east of the Philippines. This storm, called Haima (or Lawin in the Philippines), was even more powerful than Sarika. It strengthened into the equivalent of the most powerful hurricane, a powerful Category Five, but weakened a fraction before it slammed into the northeast of Luzon. This is usually a path which is well-worn during a typhoon season, but this year the season has been a little out of the ordinary.
Until two weeks ago, the Philippines had had a surprisingly quiet typhoon season. Normally the country would expect to be affected by about 20 tropical storms or typhoons in a year. A direct hit from a storm, when the centre of the system actually crosses the coastline, would be expected to happen around eight or nine times in a year, and normally the majority of them would trek across the northeast of the island of Luzon.
This year has been rather different and the storms have been strangely subdued. This is only the second typhoon to hit the northeast of Luzon this year. The first was Typhoon Nida at the end of July, a typhoon that went on to make landfall very close to Hong Kong.
Of course, every year is different. 2013 was also a year which saw very few tropical storms and only six affected the country, but in 1993, a depressing 19 cyclones pummelled the coastline. However, this year it was the start of the season which was particularly odd because the season took so long to get going. The northwest Pacific didn’t see any action until tropical storm Nepartak formed on July 3. This is very late in the year and only one year, 1998, had taken longer to produce a storm.
The naming of Nepartak ended a period of 199 days when no named storm was active in the northwest Pacific. This is a record that was only equalled once, in 1997 – 1998. It’s no surprise that this year and 1998 were similar in the amount of storms, as both were years with very strong El Ninos, the periodic warming of the surface waters of the Pacific Ocean.
However, another reason why this year’s typhoon season was so slow to start was the warm sea temperatures over the Indian Ocean. Warm water encourages more evaporation and therefore more showers to develop. In turn, this causes the winds to pick up, and the winds didn’t only increase over the warm Indian Ocean, but also further east, to the east of the Philippines as well. In the region to the east of the Philippines, the increased wind enhanced an area of high pressure. This suppressed the shower activity in the region which is usually a breeding ground for tropical storms.
Of course, this year’s lack of tropical storms and typhoons is something of a relief in the Philippines. On an average year, the Philippines sees more storms than any other country on earth. This is due to its position, situated in a vast expanse of warm water. There is no land to its east which would shelter the country from the powerful storms.
Now the season has started, it is likely that more storms will develop. Currently it looks like the end of the year will not bring the same lack of storms to the people of the Philippines as the beginning of the year.


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