Fortunately Roke has stayed well to the east of Okinawa. This has been quite an interesting cyclone as a few days ago it was stuck under an upper low and didn't look all that tropical, a lot like some of the storms we get out in the eastern Atlantic late in the season. But it sure looks tropical now, undergoing rapid intensification and is now a 115 mph typhoon with a ring of very cold cloud tops around the center. It has recently started to pull off to the NNE, passing rather close to Amami Island where they reported tropical storm force winds and a pressure down to at least 986 mb.

Japan is going to get some rough weather from this as it is expected to accelerate quickly to the NE and make landfall in about 36 hours and pass west of Tokyo. It will then merge with a front and get sucked into the big gyre over the NE Pacific. It will have a say (along with Typhoon Sonca moving the same direction out ahead of it) in how the pattern develops downstream across the U.S. this weekend and next week. Check out today's Extended Forecast Discussion.