Which storm is most powerful

A total of 40 U. Air Force aircraft reconnaissance missions flew into Typhoon Tip, making it one of the most closely monitored tropical cyclones, according to a post-analysis written by George Dunnavan and John Diercks.

Typhoon Tip slowly weakened before making landfall in southern Japan on Oct. However, the typhoon was still the most intense to hit Japan's main island of Honshu in more than a decade. Tip claimed the lives of 86 people and injured hundreds of others. The extreme winds of Tip knocked over a gasoline storage tank, causing an explosion and fire that spread rapidly through a U.

Marine Corps camp at Mt. The Associated Press reported that one person was killed and dozens of others were injured. Extensive flooding destroyed more than 20, homes in Japan, while hundreds of mudslides occurred. Image of Typhoon Tip at its strongest on Oct. One of the world's more recent destructive storms was also one of its deadliest.

On May 3, , Cyclone Nargis struck the coastal communities of Myanmar formerly Burma , pummeling the low-lying region with massive waves and catastrophic weather conditions. More than 90, people were reported dead and another 55, missing [source: Hurricane Science ]. Often the severity of a natural disaster derives from the poverty, poor construction standards or population density of the area it strikes. As evidenced by both the Haiti earthquake and Hurricane Katrina in , the poor are less healthy, less able to get out of the way of oncoming disasters, more likely to live in shelters that are vulnerable to natural forces and to lack the resources to deal with a disaster's aftermath.

On April 26, , a tornado touched down in the Manikganj district of Bangladesh -- one of the world's most densely populated countries. It swept eastward from the Daulatpur area into the severely drought-stricken areas of Saturia and Manikganj Sadar, cutting a swath 10 miles 16 kilometers long and 1 mile 1. Although its duration and extent weren't especially large, the twister obliterated every structure within a radius of 2. In the course of its brief rampage, the storm destroyed more than 20 villages, gusting residents, homes and livestock away.

It also pummeled the landscape with rain and hail, threatening what few crops had survived the preceding drought [source: Associated Press ]. When the scattered residents were accounted for, the tornado was found to have caused nearly 1, deaths, making it the deadliest tornado in recorded history [source: Encyclopaedia Britannica ].

In the aftermath, central Bangladesh fell victim to widespread hunger and disease [source: Reuters ]. In a grimly ironic twist, the tornado appeared just hours after then President Hussain Muhammad Ershad called upon the nation to pray for rain [source: Associated Press ]. This article focuses on weather-related disasters only.

For example, the tsunami , which struck the coasts of many Southeast Asian countries, was triggered by an earthquake and thus doesn't qualify for our purposes. Although the death toll from this furious storm wasn't a record-breaker, Hurricane Katrina's financial impact was incomparable, and the storm forever changed New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region. Trouble began brewing in the Atlantic in August , when the storm formed in the vicinity of the Bahamas and swept across southern Florida.

Upon returning to open waters , Katrina strengthened into a Category 5 hurricane -- the highest Saffir-Simpson rating possible. In the 18 hours before landfall, it mellowed somewhat into a Category 3 storm. A Category 5 hurricane produces sustained winds greater than mph kph , whereas a Category 3 pumps out winds at mph kph. Both are horrifying. Katrina's size and reach were remarkable. Tropical-storm-force winds could be felt nautical miles from the eye of the hurricane [source: Knabb].

For all of its remarkable winds, the aspect of a hurricane that frequently poses the greatest threat to life and property is its storm surge -- the upwelling of water caused by shoreward-blowing hurricane winds. Katrina's storm surge towered almost 30 feet 9 meters in some places, and its effects registered throughout the Gulf Coast region.

The combination of extreme storm surges and time-weakened levees caused severe flooding in New Orleans and the surrounding communities. At one point, roughly 80 percent of New Orleans lay underwater -- up to 20 feet 6 meters deep in some places -- and it would be 43 days before the last of the deluge would recede, its progress slowed by the arrival of Hurricane Rita a month later [source: Knabb]. In all, Katrina spawned 62 tornadoes across the Southeast and killed more than 1, people in numerous states [sources: Johnson; Louisiana Department of Health ].

Louisiana suffered the greatest number of fatalities. There and in Mississippi, the storm surge annihilated entire coastal communities. After four years of drought, Iran must have been desperate for water in any form -- any, that is, but the weeklong February blizzard in which it arrived.

The storm dumped feet meters of snow in outlying areas of northwestern, central and southern Iran, cutting off roads, cables and telephone lines, and trapping 4, villagers beneath its freezing blanket [sources: NOAA News ; Raein ]. Elsewhere, two massive avalanches buried an estimated 8, people. Temperatures dropped to minus 13 F minus 25 C in some areas, freezing pipes and worsening the water shortage [sources: Raein ]. In isolated, snowbound valleys, flu spread with a vengeance, and in some areas approached a percent infection rate [sources: Raein ].

Initial fatality estimates approached 6,, but later revisions reduced the count to an estimated 4, [sources: NOAA News ; Raein ; St. Petersburg Times ]. Tragic as the blizzard was, the death toll in the next disaster, which nearly washed an entire town out to sea, was higher still. Hurricane names are repeated every seven years unless it becomes the name of a very large storm. Then the name is retired. On Sept. The day before it struck, the island city, located just off the Texas coast in the Gulf of Mexico, was a place of 37, people and bright economic prospects; the next day, its population had dropped to 31,, and the city had sustained millions of dollars in damage [source: The Storm].

A hurricane -- estimated to be a Category 4 -- slammed into the unprotected, low-lying island, bringing with it immense destruction. The consensus among researchers places Galveston death tolls at 8, to 10, people, with some estimates ranging as low as 6, or as high as 12, February of the following year saw remains still washing ashore.

The hurricane's mph kph winds and foot-high 4. The whole island was submerged; by the time the waters receded, 12 city blocks -- three-quarters of the city -- had been washed away [source: Zarrella ]. In the intervening hours, people struggled to stay alive, clinging to anything they could find above water.

As the citizens rebuilt their town, they tried to provide some protection against future sea-spawned disasters. The townspeople propped up buildings -- in some cases as high as 17 feet 5 meters above their original elevation -- and raised the grade of the island. They also constructed a seawall 17 feet high and 10 miles 16 kilometers long, which helped protect the city when another hurricane hit in As horrifying as the Galveston storm and its aftermath were to the people of Texas, they were nothing compared to the devastation that struck Central America almost a century later.

If we measure the costs of storms in lives, property and the difficulty of recovery, then Hurricane Mitch is, across the board, one of the worst hurricanes ever to strike land. On Oct. Not long afterward, it weakened and stalled on the coast, where it transformed into a sprawling engine of rain production.

During this time, the storm achieved peak winds of mph kph and deluged much of Central America, causing flash floods , avalanches and mudslides that destroyed coastal regions, particularly in Honduras. After ramping up once again to tropical storm levels, it struck Florida on Nov.

Mitch's floods, mudslides and winds wrecked crops and wiped out population centers throughout Honduras and areas of Nicaragua, Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico. It demolished hundreds of thousands of homes, blew and washed away residents, and obliterated harvests.

More than 11, people lost their lives, most of them in Honduras and Nicaragua, and thousands more went missing [source: Encyclopaedia Britannica ]. In Honduras, Mitch left a country with no clear path to recovery. Trending Here are the facts and trivia that people are buzzing about. Is Vatican City a Country? The Languages of Africa. The Mongol Empire.

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