Storm Season Sure Isn’t Over for the Philippines

Super typhoon Man-yi tore into the largest island of the Philippines over the weekend, killing at least eight people and causing widespread damage. The tragedy isn’t an unusual one for this country, except that it is the fourth typhoon to hit in the last two weeks, and sixth in a month.

This particular typhoon actually weakened a bit before hitting land and its rainfall totals have not reached worst-case scenario levels. But there’s an exhaustion to repeated disasters, as other climate-vulnerable spots like, say, Florida, can attest to.

The Philippines is particularly vulnerable to these storms in general; around 20 tend to hit the country each year. But so many in such rapidity is nearly impossible to manage well; Japan’s meteorological agency said it is the first time in their records dating to 1951 that four typhoons hit the Philippines in November. Along with significant damage to crops and livestock, the six storms to hit since the last week of October have killed at least 163 people.

This is not, of course, purely random. It’s not just the Atlantic and Caribbean basins that have seen record warmth in the waters over the last couple of years; the same is true across much of the world, and it’s those hot oceans that fuel the growth of cyclones in both the Atlantic and the Pacific. Six in six weeks may be a record, but like all records these days, it’s a temporary one.