Vongfong and Hudhud: Two Storms With Odd Names Are Serious, Dangerous

Big surf in Okinawa from Typhoon Vongfong. 

To Westerners, English speakers, the names Vongfong and Hudhud may seem like a curiosity, and perhaps something that you don't need to take so seriously

But Vongfong and Hudhud are killers. Vongfong is a typhoon lashing Japan at the moment, and Hudhud is a cyclone from the Bay of Bengal that is thrashing part of India.

See the videos at the bottom of this post. 

Typhoons and cyclones are just other names for hurricanes. Hurricanes are called typhoons in the western Pacific, and hurricanes are called cyclones near India. In any case, the storms can be dangerous, and these two are.

So far, six people are known dead from Cyclone Hudhud, but the storm was still moving ashore with winds of up to 127 mph and a dangerous storm surge, so we might get updates with higher death counts, unfortunately.

The Indian government had evacuated tens of thousands of people from low lying areas and put them in sturdy concrete buildings on high ground, so that will help. But there are still an unknown number of people in flimsy buildings, or in low lying areas prone to storm surges. 

In the city of Visakhapatnam, which is near where the cyclone is making landfall, a local journalist told the BBC the wind was picking up debris and smashing things throughout the city.

Meanwhile, in Japan, Typhoon Vongfong, with winds of at least 110 mph, has injured at least 35 people on Okinawa. 

On Okinawa, winds of tropical storm force, 39 mph or greater, continued almost continuously for 13 hours and up to 20 inches of rain fell.

At least Vongfong is no longer a super typhoon like it was a few days ago out in the open waters of the western Pacific. Back then, it had winds of 150 mph.

Mainland Japan probably won't get much in the way of hurricane force winds as Vongfong continues to weaken. But it won't be moving forward that fast, so it will have time to drop a lot of rain on already soaked Japan. 

The long period of downpours from Vongfong, together with the soaking Japan got from another typhoon last week, are almost sure to cause destructive flooding. 

Closer to the United States, the Atlantic Ocean has had a quiet hurricane season, but things heated up this weekend. Tropical Storm Fay formed Friday, and early this morning caused winds to gust as high as 82 mph on Bermuda.

Fay will turn toward the northeast and weaken, and will pose no further threat to land. But it looks like another tropical storm wants to form out in the Atlantic and threaten Puerto Rico and Hispaniola later in the week.

Here's a couple videos:

This one is reportedly a view of Visakhapatnam, India amid Hudhud:

Storm chaser James Reynolds captured this footage of Vongfong in Okinawa: