Supertyphoon Doksuri

Supertyphoon Doksuri has quickly spun up in the West Pacific and is brushing the Philippines today, on its way to potentially cause significant damage to Taiwan and the mainland of China. Here’s the estimated damage swath as computed by my TAOS/TC model from the Joint Typhoon Warning Center track:

Doksuri (known as Egay in The Philippines) may cause between $200 and $300 Million US Dollars (PPP) of impacts to the northern Philippines. Thereafter, the damage to both Taiwan and the mainland of China depends, as always, on the exact track and intensity. The storm is about 36 hours away from closest approach to Taiwan, and a bit under three days away from landfall on the mainland. Using the JTWC forecast, impacts to Taiwan would be over $1 Billion, but wobbles and intensity variations will matter a lot. The JTWC forecast has the storm passing a bit under 170km southwest of Kaohsiung City Taiwan, a massive port city with a population of 2.8 Million people. Using the official forecast from the Government of China Meteorological Administration, the track is 20 km further away. Doesn’t sound like much, but it’s enough to cut potential damage by over 40%. Impacts on the mainland are more consistent in each forecast at between $2 and $3 Billion.

In the Atlantic, there is an invest area (95L) headed towards the far southern Caribbean. At one time NHC had it as much as a 40% chance of forming a tropical depression, but as of this morning that is down to 10% and I suspect they will drop it from the bulletins soon. Off the Southeast US coast there is a yellow blob that has a few people concerned, but it’s really nothing to worry about at this point. It doesn’t have an ID yet, and NHC isn’t terribly enthusiastic about it at the moment, formation probability at 20% between 48 and 120 hours. Worth checking back Thursday or Friday to see what it is doing but not worth freaking out about – it’s too hot outside for freaking out!