Typhoon Chanthu

Landfall | Summary
Posting Date: July 22, 2010, 12:15:00 PM

Typhoon Chanthu slammed into southern China near Wuchuan City in Guangdong Province at about 1:45 pm local time (5:45 UTC), further drenching a region already inundated by a month of heavy rain and extensive flooding. Chanthu’s winds were estimated to be about 126 kilometers per hour (about 80 miles per hour) at landfall, which would make it a Category 1 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. Chanthu is the third typhoon of the Pacific season. Chanthu weakened rapidly over land and within a few hours was downgraded to a tropical storm. It is expected to weaken further to below tropical storm status within the next six to twelve hours—and to dissipate within 24 hours. At present, Chanthu is tracking northwestward along the southwestern periphery of a deep subtropical ridge coming out of eastern China. However, Chanthu will continue to generate about 10-20 centimeters (four to eight inches) of rain along its path. While not an unusually heavy amount in itself, the rain is falling over a part of southern China that is already saturated with precipitation from earlier in the season. Torrential rains and floods, the worst in a decade, have claimed the lives of more than 700 people since the beginning of this year, with nearly 300 people having died since the beginning of July. Another 347 people have been reported missing. Floods have hit 27 provinces and municipalities, affecting 110 million people, with more than eight million people having had to be relocated. As Chanthu moves inland, officials express concern for the region along the Yangtze River, which has experienced its worst flooding in 30 years. The water level of the Yangtze already is over its safety limit. Floodgates of the Three Gorges Dam have been opened in an attempt to control the flow of water. In 2006, Typhoon Bilis made landfall in Fujian province to the north, but then moved south and west into the region where Chanthu is now. Typhoon Bilis lasted for five days—the longest lifetime for a typhoon ever recorded—and caused widespread flooding and landslides in the region that amounted to economic losses estimated at RMB 27 billion. However, economic damage from the floods this year (to which Typhoon Chanthu is now adding) are estimated at RMB 142 billion, already more than five times greater than the losses caused by Bilis. On the other side of the earth, almost exactly, a tropical disturbance currently near the Outer Antilles in the Caribbean Sea that the National Hurricane Center (NHC) has been tracking for the past several days has developed enough surface circulation and organized convection to be classified as a tropical depression. Officially called “TD-3” since the NHC’s 11:00 am (15:00 UTC) Advisory today, the depression is expected to develop into the second named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season. A well-established subtropical ridge will keep TD-3 on a general west-northwestward track for the next three to four days, taking it across the Florida straits and keys and then into the Gulf of Mexico. The AIR tropical cyclone team is monitoring this development along with the situation in China, and will make additional information available as warranted by events.

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Posting Date: July 22, 2010, 12:15:00 PM