Typhoon Lagoon

First of all, let's get something straight. I'm from the Midwest. I have a check-down list for tornado shelters that's eighteen qualifications long, but my options for severe ocean-borne weather boils down to about two: stay in town, or leave town. I don't know about the details, and I never bothered. If any hurricane made it all the way to Columbus, I would be much more concerned with the Four Horsemen accompanying it than I would be about a storm surge.

Hence my complete inability to understand how I should react to the news that Typhoon Wipha is headed for Shanghai and may knock us around after it goes by. I mean, I don't even know what a typhoon IS. I know it's a lot of fun to say, and was the name of the wave pool at Wyandot Lake when I was a kid, where Angelique Zeune got a three inch splinter through her foot on a sixth-grade back-to-school trip. But that's probably not the fault of a typhoon.

After some research (i.e., the textbook I teach geography from), I learned that we refuse to call the exact same weather the same word if it happens in different parts of the world. A typhoon would be a hurricane in the Atlantic, and the one that might get near us would be labeled Category 4.

In any case, for those of you (i.e., moms) who are panicking right now, calm down. Yes, Typhoon Wipha is a bad one. But it's aimed very far south of us, and even if it does loop back around to dump on Seoul, it will have shed a lot of strength going over land. We will probably get soaked, and we'll probably get some heavy wind, but Seoul's not about to turn into Katrina-land. Which is a shame, because I've been looking forward to looting the stores downstairs. (Oh, I went there. Yes, I did.)
In any case, do send good vibes to the Shanghainese. But don't panic for us. Not about typhoons, anyway. As far as lesson planning goes, panic all you like. I certainly do!