Hurricane? Cyclone? Typhoon? Here’s the difference

Typhoon Kalmaegi killed at least 114 people in the Philippines and left even more missing as it slammed into Vietnam. A second typhoon, Fong-Wong, is expected to hit the Philippines around Sunday and strengthen into a major storm at that time. Hearing these major storms called hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons can be confusing. But they’re actually all the same: officially, tropical cyclones. They are simply given different names in different parts of the world. Hurricane is used in the Atlantic, Caribbean, and central and northeastern Pacific. In the Northwest Pacific, they are typhoons. And in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea, they are cyclones. These storms qualify once they reach 74 mph (119 km/h) or faster.