Typhoon Haiyan, known as Typhoon Yolanda in the Philippines, was one of the strongest tropical

cyclones ever recorded, which devastated portions of Southeast Asia, particularly the Philippines, on
November 8, 2013.[1] It is the deadliest Philippine typhoon on record,[2] killing at least 6,300 people in that
country alone.[3] Haiyan is also the strongest storm recorded at landfall. In January 2014, bodies were still
being found.[4]
The thirtieth named storm of the 2013 Pacific typhoon season, Haiyan originated from an area of low
pressure several hundred kilometers east-southeast of Pohnpei in the Federated States of Micronesia on
November 2, 2013. Tracking generally westward, environmental conditions favored tropical
cyclogenesis and the system developed into a tropical depression the following day. After becoming a
tropical storm and attaining the name Haiyan at 0000 UTC on November 4, the system began a period
of rapid intensification that brought it to typhoon intensity by 1800 UTC on November 5. By November 6,
the Joint Typhoon Warning Center(JTWC) assessed the system as a Category 5-equivalent super
typhoon on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale; the storm passed over the island of Kayangel in
Palau shortly after attaining this strength.
Thereafter, it continued to intensify; at 1200 UTC on November 7, the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA)
upgraded the storm's maximum ten-minute sustained winds to 230 km/h (145 mph), the highest in relation
to the cyclone. The Hong Kong Observatory put the storm's maximum ten-minute sustained winds at
285 km/h (180 mph)[5] prior to landfall in the central Philippines, while the China Meteorological
Administration estimated the maximum two-minute sustained winds at the time to be around 78 m/s
(280 km/h or 175 mph). At the same time, the JTWC estimated the system's one-minute sustained winds
to 315 km/h (195 mph), unofficially making Haiyan the strongest tropical cyclone ever observed based on
wind speed, a record which would then be surpassed by Hurricane Patricia in 2015 at 345 km/h
(215 mph).[6] It's also the strongest tropical cyclone in the Eastern Hemisphere; several others have
recorded lower central pressure readings. Several hours later, the eye of the cyclone made its
first landfall in the Philippines atGuiuan, Eastern Samar. Gradually weakening, the storm made five
additional landfalls in the country before emerging over the South China Sea. Turning northwestward, the
typhoon eventually struck northern Vietnam as a severe tropical storm on November 10. Haiyan was last
noted as a tropical depression by the JMA the following day.