Strong winds and high waves struggled in the eastern Philippines on Monday as the strongest typhoon ever recorded in April passed into the Pacific Ocean.
The national weather office on Monday issued a warning for severe winds and heavy rainfall, saying ‘devastating typhoon winds extend outwards to 110 km (68.35 miles) from the center of the storm’.
According to provincial disaster agencies, more than 100,000 people have been evacuated from coastal areas.
The core of Surigae, or Bising as the storm is known locally, is not expected to hit land. But with a diameter of 500 km and winds reaching 195 km per hour, parts of the eastern islands of Samar experienced floods, while several communities lost power.
The first super-typhoon of 2021 predicts a busy storm season for the region in the coming year, experts say.
“Early indications are that the typhoon season in 2021 will be at least average and possibly above average,” US meteorologist Jeff Masters wrote in a report on Yale Climate Connections’ website, which reports daily on climatic conditions.
Atmospheric scientists say data show that storms, typhoons, cyclones or hurricanes in different parts of the world are getting stronger as a result of global warming.
“The fuel for these storms is warm oceans,” said Anne-Claire Fontan, a scientific official at the World Meteorological Organization in Geneva.
“The global trend is that they are getting stronger, and a higher percentage of total storms will be stronger.”
A warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, which causes stormy winds to pour more rain. In particular, the water temperature in the western Pacific Ocean is higher than the world average, making it fertile ground for mega-storms like Surigae. The region sees more storms than any other part of the world, with more than 70% developing at the peak of the season between July and October.
Disaster officials said a 79-year-old man from southern Leyte province in the Philippines was confirmed dead after being hit by a fallen tree and missing one person.
The Philippines sees about 20 tropical storms annually. Last year, the strongest typhoon of the year, Goni, hit the country with gusts of up to 310 km per hour, killing 25 people and forcing the evacuation of more than 345,000.
Meanwhile, Taiwan is hoping the storm will bring much-needed rain to ease a drought, while people are going to social media to welcome it. However, it is expected to move away from Taiwan to the Pacific Ocean and bring rain to the northern part of the island later this week.
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