Sandy affected a broader geographic area than most storms, hitting a bigger population and a range of industries from manufacturing and finance to retail and shipping.
New Zealand's high commissioner in Apia, Nick Hurley, said the cyclone was bigger than other tropical storms he had experienced in the region, and its strength was unexpected.
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They then modeled a solar storm with the intensity of the Carrington Solar Storm, which took place in 1859 and is estimated to have been about four times stronger than the Halloween storms.
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They are the fundamentals that allow some states to weather economic storms better than others.
At the height of the storms more than 200, 000 homes and businesses lost power.
Pielke's team studied more than a century of storms, spanning a period that included decades when meteorologists lacked the technology to measure wind speeds at a storm's center with any certainty.
Of course, in my experience of growing up in Houston, things that the Houston gets a lot more damage from heavy rains that are brought on by tropical storms more than Ike the hurricane.
In 2002, bad weather and severe storms kept more than half of the yachts from finishing.
The report noted that storms generating more than an inch of rain could happen twice as often, and that wind speeds are dropping.
More than 24 hours before the storms began rolling across the Midwest on Saturday, the service was cautioning residents of the storm's potential damage.
More than 300, 000 homes in France were still without electricity more than a week after powerful storms struck the country and caused widespread damage.
So while the median damage from Category 5 storms has been only somewhat larger in dollar terms than from weaker Category 4 hurricanes, the sample size of the fiercest storms is too small to be useful.
Indeed, no fewer than six of the most damaging storms in U.S. history have come in the past 18 months.
The paper shows that there has been no increase whatsoever in the number of Atlantic storms that last more than 48 hours.
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Power restoration took longer after the 2012 Derecho than other severe spring and summer storms affecting the Ohio Valley and Mid-Atlantic regions.
Britain has just weathered floods and storms in a wetter than average winter, but experts are already warning that it could be a very dry summer.
Now, this is actually better than expected, considering the severe storms all along the East Coast are estimated to have had a depressing effect on the numbers.
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) The remnants of violent storms that killed more than a dozen people in Oklahoma moved out to sea with a whimper Monday, but not before sending punishing winds and torrential downpours to New England and spawning a tornado in South Carolina.
The economic storms in Europe are more than enough potential problems to keep investors occupied, but the economic clouds potentially forming in China also need to be watched.
That does not sound like much but it does mean that extreme rain storms may bring more rain than before - with more moisture in the air, what goes up must come down, and the odds are worse.
And we will make it through these economic storms and reach calmer waters stronger than we were before.
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As the storm force of Katrina was less than category three when it hit land and storms in the region have the capacity to exceed category four, the likelihood that any levee system can successfully restrain nature is low.
Earlier in the morning the president toured tornado-devastated Pratt City where more than 300 homes were damaged or destroyed during the storms.
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By studying these clouds from every angle and at every point in their life cycle, researchers hope to learn more about how these storms, which can drive air more than 13km above the Earth's surface, will contribute to climate change in a warming environment.
This is a higher destructive potential than any hurricane observed since 1969, including Category 5 storms like Katrina, Rita, Wilma, Camille, and Andrew.
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Though that did not make the situation any better than it is now, it was enough to stop storms becoming even more powerful as global carbon-dioxide levels rose, and ocean temperatures rose with them.
Nearly half of those deaths were caused by exposure to the cold--twice the number of heat-related deaths and more than all of the combined deaths resulting from lightning, storms, floods, earthquakes, landslides and other natural events.
During Papa Mau's journey, he weathered gale force storms, fended off sharks, spent more than 365 days at sea, skirted around the Great Barrier Reef, and finally battled and surfed the East Australian Current (EAC) to reach his final destination in Hervey Bay near Bundaberg, Queensland, Australia.
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More than 300 people have been killed on the island since the storms began hitting last month.
The researchers found that, despite surface currents, storms and other distractions, the humpbacks never deviated more than about 5 degrees from their migratory courses.
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