In 2004, as we all remember too well, four hurricanes--Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne--struck Florida in fairly rapid succession. In early 2005 (as relatively few Americans know), the Cook Islands had to deal with four extremely intense tropical cyclones--Meena, Nancy, Olaf, and Percy--in the space of a month. Now 2006 is seeing its rapid-fire shellacking, and the unlucky country is the Philippines. First came Typhoon Xangsane, then Super Typhoon Cimaron, then Typhoon Chebi--all very intense, and all hit the main Philippine island of Luzon in the space of just over a month. And it's not over yet. Here comes another one: Typhoon Durian, also projected to explode in intensity right before making landfall. Something about this particular stretch of ocean to the east of the Phillipines is just proving an ideal breeding ground right now...but as the prior examples show, such clustering has happened somewhere in the world in each of the past three years. I haven't looked for examples going back farther, I'm sure there are some though.....
UPDATE 6 am ET: Oh brother, now Durian has rapidly intensified and is projected to perhaps become a Category 5 before landfall.....and seems directly aimed at Manila.
