What's a Typhoon, Anyway?
Hurricanes, cyclones, and typhoons are all the same weather phenomenon.
The Category 5 typhoon is expected to hit the Philippines at full strength.
"The deadliest threat from Philippine typhoons is usually heavy rains, since the islands are very mountainous, leading to very high rainfall amounts capable of causing dangerous flash floods and mudslides," says meteorologist Jeff Masters on his WunderBlog website.
How do typhoons differ from hurricanes or cyclones? It turns out they don’t, except for their location.
Hurricanes, cyclones, and typhoons are all the same weather phenomenon. Scientists just call these storms different things depending on where they occur:
In the Atlantic and northern Pacific, the storms are called hurricanes, after the Caribbean god of evil, named Hurrican.
In the northwestern Pacific, the same powerful storms are called typhoons. In the southeastern