Quakes and Typhoons: What's Up with Mother Nature?

It may seem like Mother Nature is pulling out all the weapons in her arsenal, after a spate of earthquakes and cyclones struck Asia in recent days, but the fact that these events coincided is just that — a coincidence.

Typhoon Morakot was the first to strike, slamming into Taiwan Sunday and causing disastrous mudslides with its torrential rains. Scores are feared to have died in the maelstrom.

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While the Pacific typhoon season has been busy, no tropical storms or hurricanes have yet sprouted in the Atlantic. This is because of events a world away —the El Nino that has developed in the eastern Pacific. El Nino puts energy high into the atmosphere that tends to promote cyclone activity in the Pacific. That energy moves across the Americas, over the Atlantic, and tends to stifle hurricane formation in the Atlantic.

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Andrea Thompson is an associate editor at Scientific American, where she covers sustainability, energy and the environment. Prior to that, she was a senior writer covering climate science at Climate Central and a reporter and editor at Live Science, where she primarily covered Earth science and the environment. She holds a graduate degree in science health and environmental reporting from New York University, as well as a bachelor of science and and masters of science in atmospheric chemistry from the Georgia Institute of Technology.