Typhoon Malakas moved toward Taiwan and the southernmost Ryukyu Islands on Thursday.\u00a0 At 8:00 p.m. EDT on Thursday the center of Typhoon Malakas was located at latitude 20.1\u00b0N and longitude 124.7\u00b0W which put it about 285 miles (460 km) south of Ishigaki, Japan.\u00a0 Malakas was moving toward the northwest at 15 m.p.h. (24 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 105 m.p.h. (170 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 125 m.p.h. (205 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 956 mb.<\/p>\n
The structure of Typhoon Malakas is well organized.\u00a0 A small eye has been evident intermittently on satellite imagery.\u00a0 More of the thunderstorms are forming south of the center of circulation, although there are spiral bands of thunderstorms in all quadrants of the circulation.\u00a0 The thunderstorms in the core of Typhoon Malakas are generating upper level divergence which is pumping out mass in all directions.\u00a0 The circulation of Typhoon Malakas has been in a rough equilibrium during the past 24 hours and the intensity has remained relatively steady.<\/p>\n
Typhoon Malakas is moving through an environment that is favorable for intensification.\u00a0 It is moving over water where the Sea Surface Temperature is near 30\u00b0C.\u00a0 Although there is an upper level trough over China and an upper level low to the northeast of Malakas, the upper level winds around the typhoon are relatively light.\u00a0 There is not much vertical wind shear.\u00a0 Typhoon Malakas could strengthen further during the next 24 hours.<\/p>\n
Typhoon Malakas is moving around the western end of a subtropical ridge.\u00a0 Malakas turned more toward the northwest on Thursday.\u00a0 It is expected to move more toward the north on Friday as is reaches the western end of the ridge.\u00a0 When Malakas moves farther north, the upper level trough over China will steer the typhoon quickly toward the northeast toward the southern end of Kyushu.\u00a0 On its anticipated track Typhoon Malakas will be near northeastern Taiwan and the southernmost Ryukyu Islands in about 24 hours.<\/p>\n
Typhoon Malakas is smaller than Typhoon Meranti was, but Typhoon Malakas is capable of causing significant wind damage.\u00a0 It will also bring heavy rain.\u00a0 Since areas on Taiwan received heavy rain when Typhoon Meranti moved past them, it will take less additional rain to create the potential for flash flooding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Typhoon Malakas moved toward Taiwan and the southernmost Ryukyu Islands on Thursday.\u00a0 At 8:00 p.m. EDT on Thursday the center of Typhoon Malakas was located at latitude 20.1\u00b0N and longitude 124.7\u00b0W which put it about 285 miles (460 km) south of Ishigaki, Japan.\u00a0 Malakas was moving toward the northwest at 15 m.p.h. (24 km\/h).\u00a0 The […]<\/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":[166,43,44,194,130,42,96,521,167],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3024"}],"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=3024"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3024\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3025,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3024\/revisions\/3025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}