<![CDATA[On this episode of "Things I Learned Today," I'm talking about Super Typhoon Haiyan, also known as Yolanda, in the Philippines. This storm is breaking records as it flies through the cities of the archipelago at top speeds exceeding 230 miles per hour, almost 1/3 of the speed in which sound travels (761mph). All of Southeast Asia is at risk of the storm’s effects in some form or another, which hits home for my wife and I a little bit as her side of my family all reside in Vietnam. We’re also set to visit them next month, so.. there’s that as well. According to meteorologists, this is the strongest storm they’ve every seen, or even have records of. Storms are becoming stronger and stronger as time goes on, a further suggestion of support for evidence of humanity’s effect on our planet. According to Quartz, the most commonly used satellite-based intensity scale isn’t capable of measuring a storm this intense, as it wasn’t designed with the idea that it would need to.
At its peak, one real-time estimate of the storm’s intensity actually ticked slightly above the maximum to 8.1 on an 8.0 scale. This meteorologist, for one, has never seen that before.[caption id="attachment_3161" align="aligncenter" width="576"]
