Trend Watch

Typhoon

When one of the most powerful storms on record struck ...

When:

Lookups spiked on November 8, 2013.

Why:

Typhoon Haiyan, one of the most powerful storms on record, struck the Philippines on November 8.

Typhoon means "an extremely large, powerful, and destructive storm that occurs especially in the region of the Philippines or the China Sea."

We suspect that many people look up the word to see how a typhoon differs from a hurricane. The answer is that they're the same thing with different names. In other regions of the world, the same kind of storm is called a hurricane or tropical cyclone.

Typhoon comes from the Greek word that means "violent storm," and was also influenced by the Cantonese words meaning "big wind."

We wish our readers in the Philippines all the best, and hope you're doing okay.


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