Saturday, December 6, 2014

Terrifyingly beautiful - Super Typhoon Hagupit (Ruby)


By now most of you will have heard about Super Typhoon Hagupit, which is bearing down on the Philippines. What makes this typhoon particularly horrific is that it is not far from the path of that dreadful Typhoon Haiyan that devastated the Philippines and beyond last November.

You can read about this one at Jeff Masters Wunderground blog, and at the Met Office News blog, and read the latest updates on the Japan Meteorological Agency website and the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC)..

Here is the latest storm track from JMA. Edit: I've updated the storm track with the latest and shown the earlier ones as well, in an animation. As always, click to enlarge. Sou 4:44 pm 6 December 2014. 12:14 am 7 December 2014.

Typhoon Hagupit storm track - Japan Meteorological Agency

The reason for the title is that typhoons and tropical cyclones are terrifying and majestic. Here is one of the terrifyingly beautiful images I came across via Leo Hickman on Twitter.

Typhoon Hagupit wind map from Earth.NullSchool.net

Go to the website for the full screen dynamic version.

There are also the reports and satellite images from NASA, like this one below:

On Dec. 4 at 02:10 UTC, the MODIS instrument aboard NASA's Terra satellite took this visible image of Super Typhoon Hagupit approaching the Philippines.
Image Credit: NASA Goddard's MODIS Rapid Response Team


According to the ABC, there are still 25,000 people living in tents after Typhoon Haiyan. Now this. Evacuations are underway, but apparently it's been quite difficult to track the path it will take.


At the risk of sounding trite, I wish everyone in the path of this monstrous storm a safe few days.


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2 comments:

  1. numerobisDecember 6, 2014 at 3:46 PM

    This is actually the first I've heard of it -- there much more buzz about the NASA mission and Beyoncé something something.

    The track shown at the BBC makes it look almost like how you would send a hurricane to systematically smash the entire Philippine coast. Awful.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. SouDecember 6, 2014 at 4:50 PM

      I've updated the JMA storm track, as an animation. It looks to be still on track to bash the Philippines with a horrific storm. The maximum winds have dropped a bit, thankfully, and it's been downgraded from a Super Typhoon to a Typhoon by the Joint Typhoon Warning Centre.

      http://www.usno.navy.mil/NOOC/nmfc-ph/RSS/jtwc/warnings/wp2214web.txt

      Delete

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