News: Typhoon Goni has made a 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 Indian Ocean
- Hurricanes in Atlantic
- Typhoons in Western Pacific in South China Sea
- Willy-Willies in Western Australia.
- Conditions: The conditions favourable for the formation and intensification of tropical cyclones are:
- Large sea surface with 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.
