While covering the landfall impact in the Philippines, he was one of the first international broadcasters to report that the storm's intense winds made it the strongest typhoon to make landfall on any landmass in recorded history.

CNN: CNN Profiles - Tom Sater - Meteorologist and Weather Anchor, CNN International

Moore Officials had played down the likelihood that the city could soon again be hit like it was in 1999: "If we are struck again, it will very likely be by a much less intense storm, " the city's website stated.

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"The brunt of the storm itself was intense but short -- there was very strong rain and wind for about 15 minutes, at which point the rain cleared and the lightning show began, " said Matthew Burke, a CNN iReporter who photographed lightning sprawling across the New York City skyline.

CNN: N.Y. state official among 3 killed during powerful storms

Most left the area when the storm's circulation got so intense that visibility became an issue.

CNN: Why we chase storms

Storm surges have the potential to be dangerous because they involve a great upwelling of a stretch of ocean - intense low pressure at the heart of a storm literally tugs the sea surface above its normal level to create a massive bulge.

BBC: Legacy of Britain's great flood

Pitchford said that Gearbox wanted to capture not only the intense combat but also the lull before the storm.

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The fifth is the observation in reality of a predicted link between increased sea-surface temperatures and the frequency of the most intense categories of hurricane, typhoon and tropical storm.

ECONOMIST: Changing science

One of those was named Sandy, as it transitioned from a large but not particularly intense hurricane into a large and particularly vicious coastal storm.

FORBES: The Anatomy Of D.C.'s Snowstorm Forecast Bust: When Good Science And Good People Go Wrong

In August 1998, one of these bursts was so intense that it measurably heated the Earth's outer atmosphere a first for a celestial storm.

ECONOMIST: Pulsars