Important Facts For Prelims
Typhoon Goni
- 02 Nov 2020
- 2 min read
Why in News
Recently, Typhoon Goni has made landfall in the eastern Philippines.
- The Philippines is used to powerful storms - it is hit by an average of 20 storms and typhoons a year.
Key Points
- Goni - known as Rolly in the Philippines - is the most powerful storm to hit the country since Typhoon Haiyan killed more than 6,000 people in 2013.
- In fact, Typhoon Goni is the world’s strongest Typhoon in 2020.
- Last week, the Philippines was hit by Typhoon Molave.
- Another storm, Atsani, is gaining strength in the Pacific Ocean as it approaches the Philippines.
- Typhoon is a regionally specific name for a strong "tropical cyclone".
- Tropical cyclones are known as ‘typhoons’ in the northwest pacific ocean, hurricanes in the North Atlantic Ocean, Willy-willies in north-western Australia and Tropical Cyclones in the Indian Ocean Region.
- A tropical cyclone is a generic term used by meteorologists to describe a rotating, organized system of clouds and thunderstorms that originates over tropical or subtropical waters and has closed, low-level circulation.
- Tropical cyclones rotate counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere.
- These are measured by the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.
- Naming of Typhoons: The Regional Specialized Meteorological Centre (RSMC) Tokyo - Typhoon Centre assigns a tropical cyclone a name from the five lists. The name ‘Goni’ is contributed by South Korea.
