Typhoon Goni: Asia’s most powerful tropical storm of 2020?

News: Typhoon Goni has made landfall in the eastern Philippines.

Facts:

• Typhoon Goni: It is a tropical cyclone that recently made landfall as an extremely powerful Category 5–equivalent super typhoon in the Philippines.

Additional Facts:

• Tropical Cyclone: They are violent storms that originate over oceans in tropical areas and move over to the coastal areas bringing about large-scale destruction caused by violent winds, very heavy rainfall, and storm surges.
• Wind Direction: The winds blow counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere.
• Different Names: Tropical Cyclones are known by different names in different regions:
  • Cyclones in the Indian Ocean
  • Hurricanes in Atlantic
  • Typhoons in the Western Pacific in the South China Sea
  • Willy-Willies in Western Australia.
• Conditions: The conditions favorable for the formation and intensification of tropical cyclones are:
  • Large sea surface with a temperature higher than 27° C;
  • Presence of the Coriolis force;
  • Small variations in the vertical wind speed;
  • A pre-existing weak- low-pressure area or low-level-cyclonic circulation and
  • Upper divergence above the sea level system.