Typhoon Haiyan Was Not the Size of the US
Super Typhoon Haiyan, the strongest storm seen in during the satellite era, was spotted by the Japan Meteorological Agency's MTSAT on Nov. 7, 2013, as it headed toward landfall over the Philippines.
(Image credit: Japan Meteorological Agency/NOAA)
No, Super Typhoon Haiyan was not the size of the continental United States. You could be forgiven for thinking so, however, based on an image suggesting as much released by the American Red Cross yesterday (Nov. 11) that went viral. The storm was much smaller — it would have only covered much of the U.S. Southeast, the New Republic reports.
The Red Cross was alerted to the error and posted an apology yesterday: "Earlier today, we posted a map of Typhoon Haiyan comparing the size of the storm to geography of the United States. In the process of making the rest of our maps for our operations in the Philippines, we made a mistake with this one and it was not to scale."
