Around 1200 UTC on November 7, Haiyan attained its peak intensity with ten-minute sustained winds of and a barometric pressure of 895 mbar (hPa; ). This made it the second-most intense tropical cyclone in the Northwest Pacific Ocean on record, based on wind speeds alone, along with Bess in 1982 and Megi in 2010, only after Tip in 1979. Six hours later, the JTWC estimated Haiyan to have attained one-minute sustained winds of and gusts up to . This officially ties Haiyan with Typhoon Meranti in 2016 as the fifth-strongest tropical cyclone on record in terms of wind speed, only exceeded by Typhoon Ida (325 km/h) in 1958, Typhoon Violet (335 km/h) in 1961, Typhoon Nancy (345 km/h) in 1961 and Hurricane Patricia (345 km/h) in 2015. However, due to the fact the wind recordings in typhoons were erroneously high during the 1950s and 1960s, it can be said that Haiyan made its way as the second strongest tropical cyclone on record, second only to Hurricane Patricia in 2015. (It is important to note, however, that Patricia's winds were directly measured by hurricane hunters aircraft, observations which were not available for Haiyan, so the record is uncertain and comparing the intensities of the two storms is problematic.) The storm displayed some characteristics of an annular tropical cyclone, though a strong convective band remained present along the western side of the system.