I mentioned this in another thread, but I will regurgitate it here. I don't consider myself well informed. But I live in the Philippines and I have been in a h

I mentioned this in another thread, but I will regurgitate it here. I don't consider myself well informed. But I live in the Philippines and I have been in a high wind, light flooding typhoon and a low wind high flooding typhoon. Of the two, the high flooding typhoon caused a lot more damage and loss of life. You can't make apples to apples comparisons on typhoons. Wind speed isn't necessarily the most destructive factor. Wind creates a lot of damage, but its flooding which creates high casualty counts. The devastating tsunamis we have recently seen is a great example of this. From this article. http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/11/10/21389125-typhoon-haiyan-us-forces-heading-to-storm-devastated-philippine-islands?lite http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/11/10/21389125-typho... > Most of the deaths appear to have been caused by surging seas that resembled a tsunami, flattening buildings and drowning hundreds, according to Reuters. It's certainly possible that the region you mentioned in India was better prepared, but I'm guessing that the flooding was worse in the 1999 storm. The Philippines typhoon was among the strongest to ever hit hand. It neared the theoretical maximum strength of a typhoon. One of the methods used to measure the strength of a typhoon is the Dvorak scale which goes up to 8. At the peak of the storm, it hit 8 and they could no longer measure it. They could only estimate that it went up to as much as 8.2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvorak_technique http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvorak_technique