The "Vanuatu Monster" storm

From CNN

From Wiki

First of all, where is and what is Vanuatu? It's an island nation of volcanic origin in the South Pacific some 1000 miles east of northern Australia. If you subscribe to the USGS earthquake notification system, you'll see a lot of alerts about earthquakes near Vanuatu. 65 of Vanuatu's 82 islands are inhabited. The islands are steep, prone to landslides and slippages, and there is little permanent fresh water. The shorelines are rocky and drop quickly into oceanic depths because there is no continental shelf. The active volcanoes are Lopevi and Mount Yasur, with eruptions (undersea) recorded in 2008, and another in 1945. About 267,000 people inhabit the islands. Many people live on less than $1/day, and the infrastructure is weak.

Four cyclones at once

Although two cyclones in the same basin at the same time is not uncommon in the Atlantic or Pacific, four storms at once is rather rare. There are currently four simultaneously in the southern Pacific: Olwyn, Nathan, Bavi and Pam. There have only been four simultaneous hurricanes at once in the Atlantic two times, in 1893 and 1998.* The 1893 hurricane claimed between 1000-2000 lives in Georgia and South Carolina.

Pam, at category 5, is the strongest storm to make landfall since Haiyan hit the Philippines in 2013. Pam has already hit Port Vila, the capital of Vanuatu, a city of 44,000 people. It is likely to hit southern Vanuatu islands early Saturday morning local time. Pam has sustained winds of 165 mph, but as of the time of this writing (Friday, 1:00 PDT which I think is Saturday at 1:00 a.m. in Vanuatu) the reported gusts have been 60 mph. Storm surge and "very rough to phenomenal seas" are expected to affect particularly the central and southern islands.

It's a bit difficult to know what to believe about barometric pressures, as there are no reconnaissance aircraft in the vicinity. Pressures in the eye have been reported to be as low as 870-890 mbar's. If true, the 890 mb is lower than all known hurricanes except Wilma in 2005 (882 mbar's) and Gilbert in 1988 (888 mbar's).  The lowest pressure ever recorded was Super Typhoon Tip (870 mbar's) in 1979.

Why four at once?* There is a wet/dry cycle of 30-60 days known as the Madden-Julian Oscillation, a wave of atmospheric energy that moves east near the equator over these time scales. In one phase, upward motion in the atmosphere is strong, a condition that boosts the formation of thunderstorms. This is the condition now in the western Pacific.This, combined with a strong burst of westerly near-surface winds just south of the equator in the same region this week gave a "boost" to any low-pressure systems trying to get fired up. The result: four storms. See the reference at *, and links within it, for more discussion.

My prayers and thoughts are with the people of Vanuatu as you recover from this storm.

* Discussion from http://www.weather.com/storms/typhoon/news/four-tropical-cyclones-pacific-australia