Haiyan more powerful than year's 12 named Atlantic storms combined

Super Typhoon Haiyan packed more energy than the sum total of all 12 named storms - including two hurricanes - that have formed so far in the Atlantic this hurricane season.

That shows not only the intensity of the single 313km/h Pacific system, but also how "wimpy" the storm season has been in the Atlantic, said Jim Lushine, a retired US National Weather Service forecaster and tropical expert.

"Super typhoons in the western Pacific are much more frequent than hurricanes of equal strength in the Atlantic," he said.

"This is, at least in part, due to the fact that the Pacific is a much larger expanse of warm ocean water."

Haiyan's winds were gusting to 378km/h three hours before landfall, "making it the fourth-strongest tropical cyclone in world history", said Jeff Masters, chief meteorologist of Weather Underground, an online weather site.

Haiyan was also 35km/h stronger than Hurricane Andrew, which struck Florida's Miami-Dade County as a Category 5 system with top winds of about 278km/h in August 1992.