Charles E. Boyle in Insurance Journal: Typhoon Jelawat remains a powerful storm, even if its wind speed has decreased from around from 155 mph, 250km/h, it passed over Okinawa on Saturday with wind speeds over 90 mph, 144 km/h, causing extensive damage, and injuring more than 50 people. It was the third typhoon to strike the island during the current tropical cyclone seasonAIR Worldwide reported that the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), said Jelawat made landfall on Sunday in southern Wagayama prefecture with a minimum central pressure of 965 mb and ten-minute sustained wind speeds estimated at 70 knots – 80.55 mph, app. 129 km/h - making it a category one cyclone on the Saffir-Simpson intensity scale.
According to AIR, “over the previous 12 to 24 hours, as Jelawat approached mainland Japan, it encountered cooler ocean temperatures and substantially higher vertical wind shear in response to a mid-latitude trough over the northern Sea of Japan. As a result, Jelawat was weakening and undergoing extra tropical transitioning at the time of landfall, with most of the convection located north of the storm center. Observations in southern Wagayama and Aichi prefectures support the JMA central pressure estimates of 965 to 970 mbs.
“Peak 10-minute sustained wind speeds of 20.3 m/s (52 mph, 83km/h, 1-minute sustained) with gusts as high as 36.4 m/s (81 mph, 130 km/h) were observed in Shionomisaki, in southern Wagayama prefecture while peak 10-minute sustained wind speeds of 21.0 (53 mph, 85 km/h, 1-minute sustained) with gusts to 36.1 m/s (81 mph, 130 km/h) were observed in Omaezaki, in southern Shizuoka prefecture. These types of wind speeds were restricted to the coast, however. As Jelawat moved inland, interaction with mountainous terrain has weakened the storm’s winds still further...
Typhoon waves in Japan last year, shot by Stephen Wheeler, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license
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