What is a typhoon?

By Meteorologist Mike Skurko

With the devastation of Typhoon Haiyan still making headlines, many have been comparing its effects to other storms such as Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy.  Is this a fair assessment?  Yes … typhoons and hurricanes are essentially the same type of storm, just different regions of the world have different names for it.

Any of these “hurricane-like” storms are meteorological-defined tropical cyclones.  In the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, and central and northeast Pacific, they become referred to as hurricanes.  In the northwest Pacific they are called typhoons.  In the India Ocean and southwestern Pacific they are referred to as cyclones.