Friday, September 18, 2009

Typhoon Choi-Wan swinging by Japan on weekend

PhysOrg: Typhoon Choi-Wan passed the island of Iwo To stirring up heavy surf, hurricane-force winds and torrential, flooding rains. This weekend, it will continue on its northeasterly track paralleling Japan, while its center remains in the open Western Pacific Ocean.

Microwave and infrared imagery from NASA's Aqua satellite during the early morning hours of September 18 revealed extremely high thunderstorms in Typhoon Choi-Wan as it passed the island of Iwo To and was approaching Chichi Jima.

NASA satellite imagery showed that the tops of the thunderstorms are so high they reached the tropopause, the level of atmosphere between the troposphere and stratosphere. Those high thunderstorms mean very heavy rainfall for the area underneath. The cloud tops extended to the 200 millibar level in the atmosphere where temperatures are as cold or colder than -63 Fahrenheit.

…On September 18 at 11 a.m. EDT, Choi-Wan was located 120 miles west-northwest of Iwo To, near 25.8 north and 139.4 east. It was moving north-northeast near 13 mph. Choi-Wan's maximum sustained winds were near 126 mph and those winds were still generating huge waves, as high as 41 feet….

Choi Wan on September 16, from NASA

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