Philippines braces for 'super typhoon'

A typhoon that is so strong it is now classed as a "super typhoon" is roaring into the Philippines today with winds gusting to an incredible 354km/h and sustained at 290km/h.

The huge typhoon is now a rare catastrophic tropical storm and is likely to cause deaths and widespread devastation to northern parts of the Philippines.

Typhoon Megi may also slam into Hong Kong this Friday or Saturday - although it's unclear what size the storm will be by then.

Megi - which is Korean for "catfish" (a weird name for a storm if you ask me... imagine if instead of Bola we had one called "Gurnard"?) is now so strong that it has become one of the most powerful tropical storms ever recorded. Weather.com says it is in the top 4 - and now beats, in intensity, Hurricane's Rita and Katrina back in 2005. Click here for full details.

Weather.com also says the central air pressure was measured by a reconnaissance aircraft - (known as hurricane hunters in America). Storms in the western Pacific aren't normally measured this way (I'm assuming because they are expensive to send up?) but this one is so intense a plane was sent to fly through its eye....can you imagine the turbulence on that flight?

So what did it record? Well - an astounding air pressure measurement: 893hPa. To put this into perspective, the big storm that caused all the damage, power cuts and snow storm last month here in New Zealand had a central air pressure of around 940hPa...and that storm was 1500kms away from us. This storm is far more intense and is making a direct hit on a populated nation with poor infrastructure. It is truly going to be devastating for many people.

Hurricane Katrina dropped to 902hPa at her peak... but only made landfall as a weaker Cat 3 storm. Megi would easily be a powerful Cat 5 storm, almost off the scale in comparison to most Atlantic hurricanes.

According to weather.com the lowest ever recorded air pressure in a tropical storm was in 1979. Typhoon Tip reached 870hPa. And again, to put into comparison with New Zealand, most of our damaging storms that hit us each year would only be around 975 to 995hPa. So you start to see how to read air pressure as a sign of intensity... and this one is right up there.

Labour Weekend is coming - who will get the sun and who will get the rain (if any)?... click here for our independent long weekend forecast.