Typhoon Meranti rapidly intensified into the equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale as it moved on a course that threatens Taiwan.\u00a0 At 11:00 a.m. EDT on Monday the center of Typhoon Meranti was located at latitude 19.2\u00b0N and longitude 127.6\u00b0E which put it about 495 miles (800 km) southeast of Taiwan.\u00a0 Meranti was moving toward the west-northwest at 14 m.p.h. (23 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 180 m.p.h. (290 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 220 m.p.h. (355 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure.<\/p>\n
Meranti is a large dangerous typhoon.\u00a0 The Hurricane Intensity Index (HII) is 42.2.\u00a0 The Hurricane Size Index (HSI) is 25.5 and the Hurricane Wind Intensity Size Index (HWISI) is 67.7.\u00a0 Those indices suggest that Typhoon Meranti is capable of causing widespread catastrophic damage.<\/p>\n
The structure of Typhoon Meranti is very well organized.\u00a0 A well formed circular eye is surrounded by a ring of very tall thunderstorms.\u00a0 Additional strong spiral bands of thunderstorms are rotating around the core of the circulation.\u00a0 Typhoon Meranti is generating strong upper level divergence which is pumping out mass in all directions.<\/p>\n
Typhoon Meranti is moving through an environment that will allow it to maintain much of its intensity until it reaches Taiwan.\u00a0 It is moving over water where the Sea Surface Temperature is near 31\u00b0C.\u00a0 The upper level winds are weak and there is not much vertical wind shear.\u00a0 If a rainband wraps around the existing eye, then an eyewall replacement cycle could temporarily weaken Typhoon Meranti.<\/p>\n
A subtropical ridge is steering Typhoon Meranti toward the west-northwest and that general motion is expected to continue for several more days.\u00a0 On its anticipated track Typhoon Meranti will be very near the southern tip of Taiwan in about 36 hours.\u00a0 After it moves past Taiwan it is forecast to move into eastern China.<\/p>\n
Meranti is an extremely dangerous typhoon.\u00a0 It is capable of causing widespread catastrophic wind damage.\u00a0 In addition it will produce very heavy rain and flooding is a serious concern.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Typhoon Meranti rapidly intensified into the equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale as it moved on a course that threatens Taiwan.\u00a0 At 11:00 a.m. EDT on Monday the center of Typhoon Meranti was located at latitude 19.2\u00b0N and longitude 127.6\u00b0E which put it about 495 miles (800 km) southeast of Taiwan.\u00a0 […]<\/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":[514,43,44,103,194,42,96,517,515],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3000"}],"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=3000"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3001,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3000\/revisions\/3001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}