Typhoon Vongfong has been in an environment of warm Sea Surface Temperatures (SSTs) and light upper level winds, which is almost ideal for intensification of a tropical cyclone.\u00a0 As\u00a0 result it has intensified very rapidly and it has reached the intensity necessary to be classified as a Super Typhoon.\u00a0 At 5:00 p.m. EDT the center of Typhoon Vongfong was located at latitude 17.6\u00b0N and longitude 133.2\u00b0E which put it about 700 miles southeast of Okinawa.\u00a0 Vongfong was moving toward the west-northwest at 11 m.p.h.\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 175 m.p.h., which made it the equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale, and there were gusts to 215 m.p.h.\u00a0 Vongfong is both stronger and larger than Typhoon Phanfone was.<\/p>\n
Vongfong is being steered west-northwest by a subtropical high pressure system.\u00a0 An upper level trough in the westerly flow at higher latitudes will approach Vongfong from the west.\u00a0 Southerly winds on the east side of the trough will cause Vongfong to make a sharp turn toward the north during the next 24-36 hours.\u00a0 It appears that Vongfong will continue to move northward during the rest of the week and it could approach southwestern Japan in five or six days.<\/p>\n
Vongfong will remain in a very favorable environment for the next 24-48 hours and some further intensification is possible.\u00a0 Eventually, the winds in the upper level trough will increase the wind shear over Vongfong.\u00a0 At the same time Vongfong will be moving over cooler SSTs as it gets farther north.\u00a0 So, a weakening trend could begin in about 48 hours.\u00a0 However, Vongfong could still be a large typhoon as it approaches Japan.<\/p>\n
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Typhoon Vongfong has been in an environment of warm Sea Surface Temperatures (SSTs) and light upper level winds, which is almost ideal for intensification of a tropical cyclone.\u00a0 As\u00a0 result it has intensified very rapidly and it has reached the intensity necessary to be classified as a Super Typhoon.\u00a0 At 5:00 p.m. EDT the center […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5],"tags":[44,46],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=134"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":135,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134\/revisions\/135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}