Super typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan), which is currently lashing Philippines, is the world's strongest tropical cyclone of 2013, according to U.S. military's Joint Typhoon Warning Centre (JTWC).

In an advisory, JTWC said that Yolanda is moving at maximum sustained winds of 278 kilometre per hour (kph) with winds gushing at 333 kph. This movement is similar to Category 5 level storms to that of usage, Francisco, Lekima and Phailin which only had an average of sustained winds of 260 kph.

"Due to very favorable environmental conditions, the system is expected to remain at super typhoon intensity over the next 24 hours," the Hawaii-based JTWC said.

JTWC said that super typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) at landfall beat the record set by Hurricane Camille in 1969 with sustained winds of 306 kph when it landed in Mississippi.

According to the definition of the Hurricane Research Division contributed by Stan Goldenberg, "super typhoon" is a term utilised by the U.S. Joint Typhoon Warning Center for typhoons that reach maximum sustained 1-minute surface winds of at least 65 m/s (130 kt, 150 mph). This is the equivalent of a strong Saffir-Simpson category 4 or category 5 hurricanes in the Atlantic basin or a category 5 severe tropical cyclone in the Australian basin."

Indeed, local weather forecasters in the Philippines said that Yolanda (Haiyan) is the strongest typhoon in the world for 2013 with its maximum wind speed calculated at 235 kph during landfall.

"This is the strongest typhoon the world had experienced this year," a weather forecaster from PAGASA said in an interview with a local press.

Another weather Web site said that super typhoon Yolanda is making a world record for being the strongest typhoon to hit in 2013.

"(Yolanda is) the strongest tropical cyclone on record to make landfall in world history," according to Dr Jeff Masters of wunderground.com.

Mr Masters pointed out that Super Typhoon Nancy in 1961 at 346 kph used to hold the record, followed by Super Typhoon Violet in the same year at 323 kph, and Super Typhoon Ida in 1958 with 322 kph.

"(Yolanda) is one of the most intense tropical cyclones in world history," Mr Masters added.

For meteorologist and weather journalist Eric Holthaus, the strength of typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) was something he had not seen before.

The U.S. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) had published a bulletin saying that Yolanda's intensity was already off the charts and can no longer be tracked by Dvorak storm intensity scale.

"DVORAK TECHNIQUE MAKES NO ALLOWANCE FOR AN EYE EMBEDDED SO DEEPLY IN CLOUD TOPS AS COLD AS (THIS)," according to NOAA.

"That means Haiyan (approached) the theoretical maximum intensity for any storm, anywhere. Put another way, the most commonly used satellite-based intensity scale just wasn't designed to handle a storm this strong," Mr Holthaus put in plain words.

"(I've) never seen that before."