In the Western Pacific yet another typhoon is about to make landfall on Asian shores.

This time it is large, sprawling Typhoon Pabuk taking aim on Taiwan. It appears that because of Pabuks large circulation envelope, it was never able to strengthen very fast or very much. Also, there is another circulation to it's south, which may have impeded it's development to some extent. It's now forecast to peak at 'just' 75 Kts. just prior to landfall along the central portions of the island.

IMHO, the larger overall circulation never really consolidated quickly enough to allow for rapid deepening, as we'd seen with several typhoons earlier this season, which underwent 'explosive' deepening to Cat 4 and 5 typhoons.

Typhoon Pabuk, only a 'Cat 1' on the SS scale is only a modest threat to Taiwan, at most. And since Taiwan obviously sees a lot of typhoons each year, we can safely assume that this one will not pose much of a problem for the typhoon-savvy folks in Taiwan. Probably the greatest threat will be to agricultural interests in the way of crop damage and field flooding.

Now wouldn't it be nice if all typhoons were this mild-mannered ?!

Link to NRL website for Pabuks' Track and Satellite Imagery:

http://www.nrlmry.navy.mil/tc-bin/tc_hom.../track_vis/dmsp