Super Typhoon Trami to remain a powerful typhoon as it slams Japan with wind, rain this week

By Eric Leister
26 September 2018
(AccuWeather) – Trami remains a powerful typhoon on Wednesday as it slowly meanders toward the Ryukyu Islands of Japan.
The powerful cyclone is currently equal to a Category 3 major hurricane in the Atlantic or East Pacific oceans.
Trami will remain over the open ocean in an ideal environment through at least Thursday, allowing the storm to remain a dangerous and powerful typhoon.
Due to the slow movement of the storm, communities still have time to prepare for possible impacts or evacuations from Trami, which could produce life-threatening conditions hundreds of miles from its center.
An area of high pressure stationed east of Japan will push Trami slowly northwestward through Friday.
Trami will then accelerate toward Japan’s Ryukyu Islands from Friday night into Saturday.
The southern Ryukyu Islands will feel the first impacts from Trami as early as Friday afternoon as winds increase and showers cross the islands.
The worst impacts will be from late Friday night into Saturday night across the southern Ryukyu Islands as Trami passes between Miyako and Okinawa.
A sharp turn toward the north and northeast will follow causing Trami to pass near or just west of Okinawa, Amami, Tokara and Osumi over the weekend.
All of these islands should all prepare for damaging winds, torrential rainfall and the potential for prolonged power outages beginning as early as Friday or Friday night. [more]

Trami to remain a powerful typhoon as it slams Japan with wind, rain this week

By Catalina Ricci Madarang
26 September 2018
(Interakyson) – An astronaut from the European Space Agency shared remarkable shots of Super Typhoon Paeng (International name Trami) on Twitter as it headed toward Japan and Taiwan.
German astronaut Alexander Gerst described the typhoon rendered in the images as pulling “the planet’s gigantic plug.”
“As if somebody pulled the planet’s gigantic plug. Staring down the eye of yet another fierce storm. Category 5 Super Typhoon Trami is unstoppable and heading for Japan and Taiwan. Be safe down there!” Gerst said.Gerst, a geophysicist and a volcanologist, also became popular for his images of Hurricane Florence, another big storm that tore through the United States. […]Recent reports show Paeng getting stronger as it moves out of the Philippine area of responsibility and gaining winds of 200 kph and gustiness of up to 240 kph over the Philippine Sea.The United States Joint Typhoon Warning Center has classified it a Super Typhoon, a term given to the strongest of typhoons with winds that reach at least 240 kph.However, new forecasts report Trami’s intensity is fluctuating in-between the Category 4 and 5 of the Saffir-Simpson scale and also quite slow at only 1.85 kph. [more]

What photos of Super Typhoon Paeng from space show about its strength

By Matthew Cappucci
25 September 2018
(The Washington Post) – Talk about no rest for the weary. Super Typhoon Trami, the third western Pacific storm this month to reach Category 5-equivalent status, is packing a punch with winds sustained at nearly 150 mph. It may slam into southern Japan this weekend as a weaker though still formidable typhoon.
Since achieving elusive Category 5 status Monday, Trami has since fluctuated in intensity as a shortwave trough approaches from the northwest. This dip in the jet stream has siphoned drier air into the northwestern limb of the storm, eroding some of its “fuel” and knocking it down a peg to a Category 4-equivalent. Still, Trami remains a force.
On the forecast track, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) is calling for a general curve to the northeast in the days ahead. That would bring the center of circulation into southern Kyushu, Japan, sometime late this weekend into early next week. With a “gradual weakening trend through seventy-two hours” expected, Trami may end up as a strong Category 2 or low-end Category 3-equivalent when it potentially makes landfall.
The Japanese Meteorological Agency has already hoisted gale advisories for the southernmost prefectures of the nation. In addition to winds sustained around 100 mph and gusting well over 125 mph, Trami has residents of southern areas bracing for a 5 to 7 foot storm surge and excessive rainfall. While uncertainty looms large, this forecast still has considerable “wiggle room” to switch things up.
In the meantime, Trami is in no hurry to go anywhere. JTWC reports that the storm “has tracked northward at 01 knots over the past six hours.” That’s a mere 1.15 mph. The average New Yorker in Manhattan walks two-and-a-half times as fast.
Why is Trami meandering so slowly? The answer lays in steering currents. The winds aloft in the atmosphere are weak. That means there’s nothing to push and pull a storm. While these sluggish winds are conducive to cyclone growth without the threat of being torn apart, they also pose a challenge. Every subtle shift of wind can have enormous implications on which way the typhoon drifts. That’s why JTWC has cautioned that they have “low confidence … due to high uncertainty in the weak steering environment.” [more]

Dangerous Super Typhoon Trami may slam into Japan this weekend