USUALLY, these are referred to as hurricanes in the Caribbean Sea and the USA where dying vestiges may even sweep over the UK and Western Europe or typhoons in Asia and the Central Pacific Ocean.
Such storms are super charged, causing devastation in coastal and inland areas and normally fizzle out when moving inland through loss of energy owing to friction with the land surface.
On Oct 29, the Super Hurricane Melissa hit the island of Jamaica in the Caribbean Sea.
The Philippines has experienced 21 typhoons already this year with the last of three, to date, in November, at super charged strength; Typhoon Ragasa hitting the northern Cagayan province, while Typhoon Kalmaegi and Typhoon Fung-wong smashed into the east coast of Luzon, both within a few weeks of each other.
All three storms recorded sustained wind speeds of 285kph in what meteorologists described as 'hellacious' winds.
On the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale, devised in 2005, these were at the very top end of the scale at Grade 5, bringing catastrophic damage to the places they passed over.
Causes of super tropical storms
Such violent storms normally occur in the late summer and early autumn months in the northern hemisphere when the ocean temperatures beneath the Trade Winds are at their warmest.
This creates a period of rougher wave action with the shores of Southeast Asian and Caribbean islands taking the brunt of the onslaught.
As one sea wave in a succession seems to be bigger, so occasional troughs in the easterlies are large enough to draw in storms from the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ).
The eye, or column-like core of the system, may begin above a cooler patch of sea in a trough of a bigger easterly air wave.
Warm and moist air with storms attached is drawn towards the disturbance to form a thickening vertical wall of clouds like a revolving cylinder or sleeve around the calm and cooler core.
The release of latent heat with so much resultant condensation seems to warm the core area suddenly by as much as 10 degrees Celsius.
Therefore, warm dry air subsides on the eye. Its adiabatic expansion and further warming at the surface makes it ripe to suck moisture off the surrounding ocean with the spinning system now feeding itself from within.
As the system moves over warm seas, tropical cyclones intensify and grow into typhoons or hurricanes.
When moisture supplies are cut off as the system passes overland or over cold ocean currents, the system dies quickly.
Thus, all such tropical cyclones are of maritime origin.
Super typhoons
The strongest storm of this year, Ragasa (better known in the Philippines as 'Nanda') hit Panuitan Island on Sept 22 with wind speeds of over 267kph, gusting to over 315kph, and accompanied by torrential rain exceeding 400mm with 3m-high waves inundating coastal areas.
Thousands of people were evacuated before the storm passed over as it headed northwest towards Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and the province of Guandong in China.
Rivers overflowed, landslides occurred, ferry ports closed, and airports were disrupted.
People tried to batten down the hatches, but with little effect and later moved to rescue centres.
Landslides, caused by the swelling of steep slopes through saturation, destroyed many homes of poorer folk.
The remote Batanes islands where Ragasa made landfall badly affected 20,000 people.
The total death toll was over 200 people.
Typhoon Kalmaegi hit the province of Cebu in the Philippines in early November, causing 224 deaths with torrential rainfall causing flash flooding, followed a week later by Fung-wong.
The latter hit land in eastern Luzon with violent winds of over 240kph, killing at least eight people in mud slides, flash flooding, and collapsing houses, with power supplies knocked out.
More than one million people were gratefully evacuated before this storm hit landfall.
Regional meteorologists attribute the longer extensions of the typhoon season to climate change.
On Nov 10, this typhoon was heading across the South China Sea towards Taiwan.
Hurricane Melissa
This was the strongest ever hurricane to hit Jamaica since records began in 1851.
It hit the Caribbean island with a population of 2.5 million, with wind speeds reaching nearly 300kph.
The atmospheric pressure dropped to 892 millibars and over 500mm of rain fell in just a few hours.
It left a deadly wake as it swept over the southwest of the island as roads were washed away, houses destroyed with a total communications blackout and loss of electricity power as telephone and electricity cables were uprooted.
In the remoter parts of the island, rescue attempts were foiled because of the difficulty of the terrain.
The coastal towns of Black River and Montego Bay were almost completely wiped out by flood water and storm surges causing sea waves of over three metres in height.
Displaced residents streamed into rescue shelters as the winds and the deluges engulfed their houses.
Massive landslides occurred, blocking what was left of roads, depriving people of food supplies.
This ferocious hurricane was moving at only 3.5kph and marched slowly over warm, deeper waters where it intensified its strength but upon hitting the Blue Mountains inland, its force weakened during its eight-hour slow crawl across the interior of Jamaica.
It exited the northeast coastline as a weakened Category 3 hurricane and then moved across to the eastern side of Cuba and the western side of Haiti and by the time it reached the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands, it was downgraded to a Category 2.
It continued its track northwards towards Newfoundland and northeast Canada with weather models predicting its dying throes would move across the Atlantic Ocean towards Western Europe bringing strong winds and heavy rain to the coastal areas there.
That forecast, I can assure readers, was spot on!
In Jamaica this super hurricane very sadly caused 30 deaths and another 30 people were killed in Haiti.
The ultimate costs of such ferocious typhoons and hurricanes amount to billions of US dollars, inevitably affecting the poorer nations of our world.
Such storms are becoming more frequent as the deeper parts of our oceans are slowly being warmed up through the effects of climate change.
As seawater takes a longer time to warm up and even a longer time to cool down, such super tropical storms will linger with us for many years to come.
Personal reminiscences
It was in the very early morning in early October 1987 that the dying remnants of an Atlantic hurricane hit the southwest of the UK.
I was awoken by severe gale force winds battering the roof of my old Victorian house and shaking the triple Roman tiles on my roof.
By 8am, a third of my roof tiles were smashed into smithereens on the ground.
Fortunately, I managed to get a roofer to replace a section of the roof that very afternoon after an extensive search by me in a builders' breaker yard, some distance from my home.
It was considered by my house insurer that 'it was an act of God'; thus, I was very much out of pocket!
Eleven years later, when staying in a coastal hotel south of Kota Kinabalu, I witnessed the dying throes of a typhoon that had caused great destruction in the Philippines.
The open window shutters flew shut and dining tables were soon devoid of guests as everything was thrown into the air.
Outside, deck chairs and parasols were scattered everywhere.
I helped the hotel staff clear up the mess created.
A nearby water village was badly devastated with the residents' zinc roofs flying off and flung like kites through the sky.
My heart went out to them.
Such natural disasters are becoming more frequent with relatively small losses in lives, but we see in our world today unnecessary loss of lives and tremendous manmade devastation in Gaza, the Ukraine, and in Sudan and in the recent past the unnecessary loss of life suffered by civilians in World Wars and subsequent outbreaks of war.
While humans have contributed through global emissions of greenhouse gases over centuries thus now fuelling the strength of super typhoons and hurricanes contributing much mental and physical pain, wars with even greater damage to mankind seem to be inevitable.
When will we learn to control ourselves and to readily learn from previous mistakes?