<<Typhoon Megi is currently a super typhoon. in the 2010 Pacific typhoon season. The name "Megi" means "catfish" in the Korean language. It is the first typhoon of 2010 in the Pacific Basin to achieve "Super Typhoon" status, and the first in the Western Pacific since Nida in 2009. With a recorded minimum pressure of 885 millibars, it is among the most intense tropical cyclones ever recorded and the first since Hurricane Wilma of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season confirmed to have a pressure below 900 mbar. It made landfall early on October 18 in northeastern Luzon at Sierra Madre, becoming one of the strongest storms ever to make landfall anywhere in the world.>>
<<The Philippines has declared a state of calamity in a northern province after super typhoon Megi made landfall, killing at least one man, cutting off power and communications, evacuating thousands and forcing flight cancellations. Megi, the 10th and strongest typhoon to hit the Philippines this year, reached Isabela province on Monday morning (local time) and by early evening was heading west-south-west across the north of the main island of Luzon with winds of 180 kilometres per hour (kph) near the centre, forecasters said.
The Red Cross says Megi is the biggest typhoon to hit the Phillippines in decades, and that its impact could be devastating. "It's a very, very big typhoon that's hitting our country, biggest in the last 20 years," Philippine National Red Cross chairman Senator Richard Gordon said. "It could inundate coastal areas, river banks and it might cause landslides. Right now everybody is hunkered down, so communication is kind of difficult at the moment. We're getting all our volunteers to text us or call us in case the situation turns sour."
Tropical Storm Risk said Megi, known locally as Juan, was a category 5 super typhoon, the highest rating, with winds of more than 250 kph when it hit mountains in north-east Luzon. "The governor of Isabela declared a state of calamity, so there could be massive damage and destruction there," Benito Ramos, executive director of the national disaster agency, said. "Power has been cut and crops about to be harvested could have been destroyed. We have no actual report because we're waiting for the weather to clear up to make an assessment."
Initial reports were of one death and a small number of casualties, although the National Telecommunications Commission said up to 90 per cent of communications in Isabela and Cagayan provinces may have been knocked out. Television footage showed uprooted trees on roads and metal and thatched roofing blown off houses. Weather forecasters say the typhoon is carrying 50 millimetres per hour of rain - similar to the volume of rain brought by Tropical Cyclone Ketsana, which struck the northern Philippines last year and caused massive devastation and deaths. Officials say Megi could damage or destroy up to 60 per cent of the crucial rice crop in the Cagayan Valley on the main island of Luzon. After clearing the Philippines, Megi will head out into the South China Sea.
<<On October 18, 2010, Typhoon Megi approached and made landfall in the northeastern Isabela Province of the Philippines. Spanning more than 600 kilometers (370 miles) across, Megi was the 15th tropical storm and 7th typhoon of the season in the western Pacific Ocean. It was the most intense tropical cyclone of the year to date.
This image was taken by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite at 10:35 a.m. Philippine Time (02:35 UTC) on October 18, 2010. Megi was bearing down on Palanan Bay as a “super typhoon” with category 5 strength on the Saffir Simpson scale. As of 8:00 a.m. local time, the storm had sustained winds of 268 kilometers (167 miles) per hour, according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center.
The storm had grown to “super” typhoon status on October 16, and wind speeds peaked at an estimated 287 kilometers (178 miles) per hour while the storm was still over the Pacific Ocean on October 17. Megi began to downgrade as it moved onshore around 11:30 a.m. on October 18 and then crossed over the Sierra Madre mountain range (average elevation 1,800 meters, or 5,900 feet).
News reports indicated at least one death and an unknown number of injuries, as power and communications was cut off to more than 90 percent of Isabela and Cagayan provinces. In addition to the immediate damage, officials were concerned about the long-term damage to the rice crop, a staple of the national diet.
The official international name of the storm is Megi, which means “catfish” in Korean. But the storm is known locally as Juan, as the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration has its own naming system. Forecasters were predicting that the storm would continue moving west and north, entering the South China Sea and re-intensifying before a potential landfall in China or Vietnam later this week. China’s National Meteorological Centre urged local governments to make preparations for extreme weather.>>
<<On October 18, 2010, Typhoon Megi approached and made landfall in the northeastern Isabela Province of the Philippines. Spanning more than 600 kilometers (370 miles) across, Megi was the 15th tropical storm and 7th typhoon of the season in the western Pacific Ocean. It was the most intense tropical cyclone of the year to date.
This image was taken by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite at 10:35 a.m. Philippine Time (02:35 UTC) on October 18, 2010. Megi was bearing down on Palanan Bay as a “super typhoon” with category 5 strength on the Saffir Simpson scale. As of 8:00 a.m. local time, the storm had sustained winds of 268 kilometers (167 miles) per hour, according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center.
The storm had grown to “super” typhoon status on October 16, and wind speeds peaked at an estimated 287 kilometers (178 miles) per hour while the storm was still over the Pacific Ocean on October 17. Megi began to downgrade as it moved onshore around 11:30 a.m. on October 18 and then crossed over the Sierra Madre mountain range (average elevation 1,800 meters, or 5,900 feet).
News reports indicated at least one death and an unknown number of injuries, as power and communications was cut off to more than 90 percent of Isabela and Cagayan provinces. In addition to the immediate damage, officials were concerned about the long-term damage to the rice crop, a staple of the national diet.
The official international name of the storm is Megi, which means “catfish” in Korean. But the storm is known locally as Juan, as the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration has its own naming system. Forecasters were predicting that the storm would continue moving west and north, entering the South China Sea and re-intensifying before a potential landfall in China or Vietnam later this week. China’s National Meteorological Centre urged local governments to make preparations for extreme weather.>>
geckzilla wrote:When I compare Art to a loaf for some reason pumpernickel comes to mind.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumpernickel Pumpernickel is a type of very heavy, slightly sweet rye bread traditionally made with coarsely ground rye. It is now often made with a combination of rye flour and whole rye berries. It has been long associated with the Westphalia region of Germany. The first written mention of the black bread of Westphalia was in 1450. Although it is not known whether this, and other early references, refer to precisely the bread that came to be known as pumpernickel, there has long been something different about Westphalian rye bread that elicited comment. The defining characteristics of Westphalian pumpernickel are coarse rye flour—rye meal—and an exceedingly long baking period. The long slow baking is what gives pumpernickel its characteristic dark color. The bread can emerge from the oven deep brown, even black. Like most all-rye breads, pumpernickel is traditionally made with a sourdough starter; the acid preserves the bread structure by counteracting the highly active rye amylases. That method is sometimes augmented or replaced in commercial baking by adding citric acid or lactic acid along with commercial yeast.[1]
geckzilla wrote:
When I compare Art to a loaf for some reason pumpernickel comes to mind.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumpernickel wrote:
The Philologist Johann Christoph Adelung states about the Germanic origin of the word that, in the vernacular, Pumpen was a New High German synonym for being flatulent, a word similar in meaning to the English "fart", and "Nickel" was a form of the name Nicholas, an appellation commonly associated with a goblin or devil (eg "Old Nick", a familiar name for Satan), or more generally for a malevolent spirit or demon. (See also the metal nickel, probably named for a demon that would "change" or contaminate valuable copper with this strange metal that was much harder to work.) Hence, pumpernickel is described as the "devil's fart." The American Heritage Dictionary adds "so named from being hard to digest." A variant of this explanation is also given by the German etymological dictionary "Kluge" that says that the word pumpernickel is older than its usage for the particular type of bread and may have been used as a mocking name for a person of unrefined manners ("farting nick") first. The change of meaning may have been caused by its use as a mocking expression for the (in the eyes of outsiders) unrefined rye bread produced by the Westphalian population.
The Oxford English Dictionary, however, does not commit to any particular etymology for the word. It suggests it may mean a lout or booby. The OED currently states the first use in English is from 1756.
There is also an oft-quoted story of how Napoleon was brought dark German rye bread for dinner while invading Germany. He declared that he wouldn't eat it and said instead "c'est pain pour Nicole!" In other words, it wasn't for him but for his horse Nicole. "Pain pour Nicole" over time became Pumpernickel. The Straight Dope claim is this Napoleon story is an example of folk etymology; the word "pumpernickel" was in use before Napoleon's time and so could not have been the origin.
now that's a large hurricane. I have seen on TV a footage of helicopter that froze and crashed trying to fly through one of these things. then some scientist explained that air from higher altitudes is pulled down too quick to get warm.
