Thank you, ImaGeo, for another informative, fascinating post. You have become an essential go-to Discover blog, tied with Out There. I hope you realize that many of us read your updates, greatly enjoying your work, but don't usually have time to post a comment (day jobs and all that). Please continue to inform us, complete with graphs, graphics, and amazing images.

Thank you so much Kimberly. I do not believe anyone has ever said anything quite like this in the comments section on anything I've written before. (And I've been at this for a long time.) So I really appreciate your kind words very much. I do love what I do, and I work pretty hard at it. It is even more rewarding to know that it has some impact, however modest. So thanks again.

Out of the 20,000 or so normal, natural and necessary high energy tropical cyclones that have kept our planet's temperature distributed and in balance, over the last two hundred years, or so, there have been many that have been remarkably ferocious, killing thousands.

And, as long as there are people living virtually in the Pacific Ocean, there will be more.

The locals face cyclones, tsunamis from earthquakes and volcanoes, or an asteroid that could inundate them at any time. A risk they are aware of and routinely take, on average less dangerous than us crossing a city street.

Nothing new here.

Even the descriptor "strongest southern hemisphere storm on record" is qualified by the fact that "however, “reliable” intensity information only dates back to about 1990 according to Phil Klotzbach"

So maybe it's just the strongest storm in 26 years, and only in the Southerrn Hemisphere?

Thank You ImaGeo.this is the first time I am reading your article and it is very informative. I for one reside here in Fiji on the Northern Part where Tropical Cyclone Winston ravaged households and destroyed lives. We here in Fiji are still picking up the pieces on a daily basis. To know that this was the strongest ever Cyclone to hit the Southern Hemisphere could only be related through the experience that we faced on February 20th of 2016.

Thank You once again for such an informative description and hope to read more interesting facts that impact our beloved Planet.

Thanks.