Typhoons and the Philippines

Color the deadliest typhoons in the Philippines over the past 70 years to see how storms are increasing in intensity

Data sources

Casualty data for the ten deadliest typhoons in the Philippines since 1947 have been retrieved from a variety of sources:

• National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, Republic of the Philippines (NDRRMC) for:
  • Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda)
  • Typhoon Durian (Reming)
  • Tropical Storm Washi (Sendong)
• International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) for Typhoon Fengshen (Frank)
• United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) for Typhoon Bopha (Pablo)
• WeatherPhilippines Foundation for all other Typhoon/Storm data

The numbers that are represented in the coloring activity include the number of people dead or missing in the Philippines as a direct result of each Typhoon or Tropical Storm.

How the data was used

• The ten typhoons/storms were plotted on a timeline by year
• Circles were drawn above each storm, where the area of each circle correlates to the number of dead or missing in the Philippines as a direct result of that storm

Code

A python script is available in the code repository to generate or extend this activity, and can be run like this:

python typhoons.py

Which will create an svg file with the circles drawn above the timeline of storms.