Typhoon Kompasu

Pre-Landfall 2 | Summary
Posting Date: September 1, 2010, 1:36:00 PM

Typhoon Kompasu, the seventh storm of the Northwest Pacific season, briefly intensified to a low Category 2 typhoon on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale after it struck the Japanese island of Okinawa, but then weakened again. It is currently tracking directly toward the coastal city of Incheon, South Korea’s third-largest city (2009 population: 2,710,500), and Seoul, the nation’s capital and largest city (2009 population: 10,450,000). Landfall is expected sometime tomorrow. According to the 12:00 am (15:00 UTC) Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) advisory, Typhoon Kompasu had maximum sustained winds of 150 km/h with higher gusts, which classifies it as a strong Category 1 storm. The JMA placed Typhoon Kompasu over the Yellow Sea about 250 kilometers northwest of Korea’s Jeju island and roughly 375 kilometers from Seoul and Incheon, moving at about 35 kilometers per hour. The area of wind speeds of 100 km/h or higher is roughly 70 kilometers wide. Kompasu is tracking along the western periphery of a deep-layer subtropical ridge, but will curve toward the east and toward mainland South Korea in the next 12 to 24 hours ahead of an approaching upper level trough. Thereafter, Kompasu is expected to weaken further before landfall and, afterwards, to begin making an extra-tropical transition as it crosses the Korean peninsula and moves into the Sea of Japan. South Korea has issued a typhoon warning for shipping interests in the waters south of Jeju island and will issue warnings and advisories for southern coastal areas of the peninsula and the Seoul-Incheon area by tomorrow morning. Kompasu will move fairly quickly across South Korea, but will still likely generate 200-250 millimeters of precipitation near Seoul. That accumulation, added to the 100-plus millimeters the area already has received in the past week from other weather systems, will likely result in flooding. Kompasu is moving on a track similar to that followed by Typhoon Olga in 1999 and Typhoon Prapiroon in 2000, storms that caused “huge damage” according to a statement by the Ministry of Land, Transport, and Maritime Affairs. In passing over Okinawa Tuesday evening, Kompasu caused more than 17,000 homes to lose power, damaged roofs in several towns, forced about 60 people to evacuate their homes, closed the operation of a 100,000-barrels-a-day oil refinery, and cancelled more than 400 flights. Meanwhile, the sixth and eighth storms of the season, Lionrock and Namtheun respectively, remain active in the Taiwan Straits between mainland China and Taiwan. Tropical Storm Lionrock is farther south and only about 150 km off the coast of Guangdong Province. As of the JMA’s 12:00 am advisory, Lionrock was moving to the northwest slowly with maximum sustained winds of about 85 km/h, about 35 km/h below the threshold to be classified as a typhoon. Lionrock is expected to make landfall somewhere between the city of Shanwei in Guangdong and Xiamen in Fujian Province tonight, Wednesday, or early tomorrow. Nearly 140,000 people in Fujian Province have been evacuated and hundreds of passengers in Zhejiang Province have been stranded because of cancelled shipping and ferry schedules. Namtheun, which is off the Fujian coast and east and south of the northern tip of Taiwan, has weakened rapidly to a tropical depression. Its remnants are still expected to merge with Tropical Storm Lionrock, but this will have little effect on the development of Lionrock. The AIR tropical cyclone team is continuing to monitor all developments in the Northwest Pacific and will provide updates as warranted by events.

Pre-Landfall 2 | Downloads
Posting Date: September 1, 2010, 1:36:00 PM