That Typhoon Threatening Japan Is Incredible!

Satellite view of Typhoon Vongfong in
the western Pacific Ocean.  

Super Typhoon Vongfong became the strongest storm on Earth for 2014 yesterday and is the strongest storm since that terrible Haiyan that hit the Phillipines last November.

I'm always fascinated by the cloud structure of really strong tropical systems and Vongfong is no exception.

Click on the visible satellite photo of Vongfong in this post to make it bigger and easier to see.

You can see the striations in the clouds surrounding the eye of the storm. To me, it implies just an incredible whirl of wind around that eye.

No surprise, because estimated highest sustained winds with Vongfong are 180 mph.

Vongfong will probably threaten Japan by this weekend. It will have weakened by then, damaged by strong upper level winds and cooler sea temperatures near Japan that tend to make tropical systems peter out.

Still, it will be a formidable storm by the time it reaches Japan. They had another typhoon on Monday, so the ground is saturated. There will be wind and storm surge damage in Japan if Vongfong hits, but I think the worst threat is inland flooding.  It could get nasty.

Close up of the eye of Super Typhoon Vongfong
Not the intense swirl, and the little mini-swirls
within the eye, which is characteristic of
powerful tropical systems.  

Some of you might be thinking, "What do I care? I'm not going to Japan."

Well, yes, but you want to be sympathetic to the people having to deal with such a terrible storm.

If you insist on looking for a way Vongfong might affect you, here it is: Sometimes, when a huge typhoon heads north, past Japan, it rejiggers the jet stream and makes it plunge southward into the central or eastern United States.

That causes a cold snap in the eastern half of the U.S.

That's not guaranteed, of course, since the typhoon/cold wave connection doesn't always work. Still, some long range models indicate a spell of chilly weather in New England, at least around the Oct 17-21 or so.

We'll see what happens.