CoconutCandy
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Loc: Beautiful Honolulu Hawaii
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As we all keep an eye on developments with TS Isaac, it's worth mentioning that a Major Typhoon, 'TEMBIN', is making it's final approach towards the Western Pacific Island of Taiwan.
Landfall of this Major Tropical Cyclone, with it's Quite Impressive Eyewall Structure, appears to be merely hours away, currently with sustained winds of 105 Knots, (or 120 mph), with attendant gusts nearing 150 mph.
Even for an Island that is quite used to dealing with Tropical Storms and Typhoons, this will be a major event.
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An Excellent Microwave Imaging Overpass recently depicting Typhoon Tembin's Impressively Symmetrical Eyewall, imparting an rather Annular Structure to the Cyclone.
Also quite impressive is Tembin's Infrared "False Color" Imagery, (below) which portrays extremely deep eyewall convection (hence the outstanding microwave signature, above!), with an extensive ring of extremely cold cloud top temperatures, approaching -90 degrees(!), which is the 'cut off', or extreme limit, of the color coded temperature legend (along the bottom of the photo).
More discussion, imagery and a few questions soon to follow.
Weather at Kaohsiung International Airport, Taiwan
Edited by Ed Dunham (Thu Aug 23 2012 04:10 PM)
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CoconutCandy
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Since the post of a couple hours ago, *Major* Typhoon 'Tembin' has certainly made it's presence known across southern Taiwan.
The amazingly symmetric eyewall structure has not only remained intact but, if anything, presents an even 'sharper' signature on passive satellite microwave imaging, and pressures have dropped another 3 millibars recently, now down to 941 mb, while the team at the (Joint Typhoon Warning Center, now located in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, NOT Guam!) has also just increased the sustained winds to 110 knots (125 mph), while 'Tembin' continues WSW, steadily approaching imminent landfall across southern Taiwan.
The good news is that Typhoon 'Tembin', though quite strong, is a rather compact cyclone, so it's core of strongest winds associated with the eyewall will remain confined to the southern half of Taiwan, thereby sparing the Capital of Taipei, located near the northwestern tip if the Island, a direct hit.
From a Meteorological Perspective, I found the "Prognostic Reasoning" (Discussion) section of the website to be very interesting and thus yielding valuable insights into the synoptic, dynamic and morphological characteristics of Typhoon 'Tembin'.
"TYPHOON 15W (TEMBIN), LOCATED APPROXIMATELY 150 NM SOUTH-SOUTHEAST OF TAIPEI, TAIWAN, HAS TRACKED WESTWARD AT 06 KNOTS OVER THE PAST SIX HOURS. ANIMATED ENHANCED INFRARED SATELLITE IMAGERY SHOWS THE EYE HAS BECOME MORE SYMMETRIC WITH THE OVERALL STRUCTURE OF THE SYSTEM REMAINING WELL ORGANIZED AND COMPACT.
THE DUAL BANDING FEATURES ALONG THE NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN HALVES CONTINUE TO FEED THE
LOW LEVEL CIRCULATION CENTER (LLCC). UPPER LEVEL ANALYSIS INDICATES THE DUAL CHANNEL OUTFLOW TO THE POLEWARD AND EQUATORWARD DIRECTIONS HAS BEEN INSTRUMENTAL IN THE SYSTEM MAINTAINING THE CURRENT INTENSITY OF 105 KNOTS."
(Or even *Increasing* to 110 Kts. all-the-while making landfall. Never underestimate the power of symmetry when it comes to Tropical Cyclones.)
And although the satellite microwave signatures, above, depicts a nicely smoothed and homogenous band, doppler radar tells quite another story with regard to the ever-evolving concentric rainbands that comprise the inner eyewall structure.
In this case, they even imply concentric eyewalls, although these may not be true concentric eyewalls in the traditional sense. Your thoughts on this matter ?? Anyone experienced reading the radar patterns of landfalling (hurricanes)?
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"Don't Get Stuck on Stupid" - General Honore, following Hurricane Katrina
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CoconutCandy
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Last post ... for now. Typhoon 'Tembin' appears to be very close to landfall, with Taiwan's SE'ern coastline now nearly bisecting the eye.
Interestingly, it appears that the cyclone, despite making landfall, appears to tightening and even plausibly strengthening just a tad more, as suggested by these last few frames of the animated Doppler radar loop (time sensitive!), showing a slow and steady contraction of the "inner eyewall" (or whatever that feature is!) while making landfall, and the calm, inner eye itself becoming progressively smaller and smaller.
There is even a frame or two (and again shown in the zoomed still, above) where the radar reflectivity briefly attains 60 dBZ (pink), which I believe is quite strong for a tropical cyclone eyewall. Again, your thoughts? I'm certainly no radar expert.
Link to Live Animated Doppler Radar Loop of Landfalling Typhoon 'Tembin' Now Crossing Southern Taiwan
PS: I like to click "Topography Not Displayed", as it shows the radar reflectivity better.
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"Don't Get Stuck on Stupid" - General Honore, following Hurricane Katrina
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DaViking
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Loc: Crystal River, FL
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87 mph wind gust in Hengchun in Southern Taiwan per that website.
The Eye I believe has just passed over the airport there.
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Lived in Florida 31 years and have never been in a hurricane. I lived in Miami in 1992, but was out of country. Sorry Miami. Then moved north in 1999. again, sorry Miami.
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vpbob21
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Loc: Ohio
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Tembin has been a very interesting storm to observe. It formed a few days ago east of Luzon and quickly went bananas and blew up to nearly supertyphoon status in less than 24 hours. It moved north then struggled through an and ran into some shear while weakening to a cat 1 storm and stalling. Then the ridge built across China and forced the storm west toward Taiwan. The combination of warm SST's and low shear gave Tembin its second wind and it pushed WSW across extreme southern Taiwan as a cat 3 storm. It weakened slightly to a 100 kt storm but is now back over water and may restrengthen. The weak steering currents have caused headaches for forecasters as earlier it was expected to cross northern Taiwan and head west into China.
The future track of Tembin promises more headaches as Typhoon Bolaven (an extremely large major typhoon probably worthy of its own thread) approaches from the southeast and possibly produces a "Fujiwhara" effect as a trough breaks down the ridge and forces Tembin to loop back east. This will be very interesting to watch over the next few days. Tembin is expected to possibly cross southern Taiwan again (in a weaker state) then accelerate out to the northeast as Bolaven races up north toward Korea.
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