Update On Cyclone Pam
By Paul Homewood
Nearly a couple of weeks on, it is perhaps time for a round up of where we are with Cyclone Pam.
As far as the death toll is concerned, fatalities are much lower than some of the earlier wild estimates. The official UN Situation Report on 22nd March gives a latest figure of 11 confirmed deaths.
This is a much lower death toll than in some earlier cyclones, for instance the 1951 one that left 100 dead, as the International Disaster Database shows:
The Vanuatu Meteorological Service describes the 1951 storm in their report, Tropical Cyclones in Vanuatu.
http://pacificdisaster.net/pdnadmin/data/original/VUT_TC_1847_1994.pdf
Hurricane Uma, in 1987, was also deadly:
The following year brought the fourth major cyclone, Hurricane Anne, to hit Vanuatu in four years. Fortunately there were no deaths there, but the damage was massive:
The strongest cyclone in the South Pacific in the satellite era was Cyclone Zoe in December 2002. Zoe’s wind speeds hit 180 mph, but fortunately the strongest winds stayed well clear of Vanuatu and other populous islands.
Even though the centre of Zoe stayed 200 miles away from Vanuatu, it did not stop the islands being inundated with seawater, with villagers collecting fish from their village greens.
http://www.usno.navy.mil/NOOC/nmfc-ph/RSS/jtwc/atcr/2003atcr.pdf
Finally, the New Zealand Met Service have a graph of tropical cyclone trends from 1969 to 2013. This covers the SW Pacific region, and excludes the Australian sector.
http://blog.metservice.com/2013/10/tropical-cyclone-season-2013-14/
If anything, there is a declining trend in terms of overall numbers. The worst year for major hurricanes was 1982/3, when there were six, followed by 2002/3 and 2004/5 which each had five.
It needs to be pointed out that both numbers and intensities for the much of the 1970’s and 80’s were almost certainly under stated prior to the introduction of full satellite coverage.
A reminder that donations can be made to the Red Cross appeal for Cyclone Pam here.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Meanwhile, during the typhoon, more people died of extreme blizzard/cold conditions in Boston than in the Pacific. No news headlines about that.
Every once so often Nature gets her knickers in a twist.