Triplet of storms means heavy weather for Asia

Andy Coghlan in New Scientist: They may have cutesy Tolkienesque names, but – from left to right in the image – Phailin, Nari and Wipha have left behind them a trail of death and destruction this week. Cyclone Phailin, which ravaged the north-east coast of India at the weekend, triggered the country's largest ever evacuation, of an estimated 800,000 people. These efforts restricted the death toll to just 22, all but one of those in a single state, Odisha.

With winds of 200 kilometres an hour, Phailin made landfall on Saturday, wrecking power-lines, roads and railways, and leaving an estimated 500,000 people homeless. But the toll is tiny compared with that from the region's previous largest cyclone in 1999, which claimed an estimated 10,000 lives and caused $4.5 billion of damage.

"It's a success story in terms of lives saved," says Tom Mitchell, head of climate change at the UK Overseas Development Institute think tank.

Phailin wasn't the only monster weather source in operation. With wind speeds up to 190 kilometres an hour, typhoon Nari ripped through the Philippines on Monday, killing at least 13 people and leaving 2.1 million without electricity...

Severe Tropical Storm Wipha on October 13, 2013, via NASA