Storms and Floods

Tropical Storms

In the Western Pacific:

Super Typhoon Haiyan is located approximately 310 nm southeast of Manila, Philippines.

Category five Typhoon Haiyan is the strongest storm to hit the Pacific region this year. Typhoon Haiyan is battering the Philippines with sustained winds of 235 km/h (146mph). Meteorologists say that if initial estimates based on satellite images are borne out, it COULD BE THE MOST POWERFUL STORM EVER TO MAKE LANDFALL. The damage from Haiyan's winds must have been "perhaps the greatest wind damage any city on Earth has endured from a tropical cyclone in the past century".

Schools and offices have been closed in the path of the storm, and thousands of people have been evacuated amid fears of serious damage. The region was already struggling to recover from an earthquake last month. The category-five storm was centred 62km (40 miles) south-east of Guiuan, in the country's Eastern Samar province. The governor of the Southern Leyte province tweeted on Friday morning that fallen trees were blocking roads, hampering the relief effort. The storm is not expected to directly hit the capital Manila, further north.

UPDATE - Powerful Typhoon Causes Mass Disruption in Philippines. One of the most powerful storms in recent history ripped through the Philippines Friday morning, killing at least three people, forcing the evacuation of thousands and putting millions of people at risk. Two people were killed in Cotabato province - an adult and a one-year-old - and a woman was fatally hit by a falling tree in Cebu.

Haiyan first bowled into fishing communities on the central island of Samar, about 600km southeast of Manila, earlier today with maximum sustained winds of 315km/h an hour. It is cutting across the central and southern Philippines and is expected to exit into the South China Sea then move on towards Vietnam late on Saturday. Authorities warned more than 12 million people were at risk from the typhoon. Its wind strength makes it equivalent to an exceptionally strong Category 5 hurricane.

Haiyan had winds of 190 - 195 mph at landfall, making it the strongest tropical cyclone on record to make landfall in world history. The previous record was held by the Atlantic's Hurricane Camille of 1969, which made landfall in Mississippi with 190 mph winds.

El Niño / La Niña

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said on Thursday it expected neutral El Niño weather conditions to persist in the Northern Hemisphere through spring. In its monthly report, NOAA's Climate Prediction Centre said that atmospheric and ocean conditions during October indicated the weather phenomenon was unlikely to cause extreme weather for the Northern Hemisphere through the spring.