A typhoon gains “super” status once sustained winds reach 130 knots, he said.
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It’s been a powerful season for hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons but if experts are correct Super Typhoon Soudelor could take the crown.
4 (CNA) The Central Weather Bureau (CWB) warned Tuesday of the potential damage Super Typhoon Soudelor may cause Taiwan, describing it as a “single wolf” typhoon.
It was stronger than Cyclone Pam, the previous strongest storm of 2015, which killed at least 15 people when it slammed into Vanuatu, also in the Pacific, five months ago.
NOAA’s National Weather Service in Guam says the storm moved across Saipan Sunday into Monday and has since strengthened to a super typhoon with winds reaching 180 miles per hour.
Wu expected Soudelor to gain strength as it approaches Taiwan because of its weak vertical wind shear – a measure of the difference in wind speeds at different heights of the storm.
El Niño events tend to increase the number of storms in the eastern Pacific Ocean, while dampening the number of storms in the tropical Atlantic. Typhoons are the Western Pacific’s version of hurricanes.
There is growing confidence that Taiwan and the southern Ryukyu Islands will have to contend with Soudelor as early as Thursday night or Friday with impacts lasting into early next week across eastern China. The Chinese city most likely to be threatened by the storm’s landfall looks to be Fuzhou, which has a population of about 2 million.
Describing Soudelor as a “single wolf”, the bureau said it would bring heavy winds and rain to Taiwan but would sweep across the island quickly rather than hovering for an extended period of time. A state of disaster has been declared, and power is out across the island, which is home to about 50,000.
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Soudelor is a Pohnpeian word for a legendary chief or ruler, as stated by the National Weather Service.
