Two tropical cyclones threatening land this morning. The first is Tropical Storm Hone, due to pass just south of the Big Island of Hawai’i as a hurricane:
The biggest threat from Hone looks to be flash flooding, and while surface winds should only be tropical storm force, the mountains and geometry are such that downslope winds could be higher due to acceleration over the ridge lines and through passes. A tropical storm warning is up for the island, with tropical storm force winds arriving tonight around sunset, peak winds overnight and in to tomorrow (Hawaiian Time).
In the West Pacific, the forecast track and intensity for Typhoon Shanshan has changed significantly to a less intense but still damaging landfall between Nagoya and Osaka …
The intensity difference between the official Japan Meteorological Agency forecast and the forecast from the US Joint Typhoon Warning Center is gone, both forecasting a decaying 85 knot (157kph) storm at landfall. At one point yesterday the JTWC forecast was for over $50 Billion in damage (as opposed to $6 Billion for the JMA forecast), now both are in the $6-$8 Billion range.
For those selfishly concerned about the Gulf and Atlantic, the official forecast for the upcoming week is for nothing to develop. Beyond that there are some cycle-to-cycle variations in the modeling that show something in 10-14 days, then it disappears in the next run. So the usual suspects might start babbling about that to fill time, but no reason to worry about it.
Music reference of the day – a German band singing in English about Japan. But the song isn’t really about Japan, it’s about drug addiction and dreaming about a different life and being drug-free. Puts a different spin on things, doesn’t it?
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Speaking as one who is already big in Japan, this downgrade is welcome news. JR East has already started mitigation measures (closing low-lying lines, reducing schedules, and moving out-of-service shinkansen trains to higher ground (to avoid repeating all that pesky flooding drama from a few years ago)). Any idea if this storm will disrupt the heat dome that has been hanging over Honshu for the last couple of weeks?
It will certainly increase the humidity in the short term and of course flash-flooding is always a risk with these storms. GFS is showing southerly flow and upper 20’s low 30’s but should cool off in to the mid 20’s after ~4 Sept or so (C of course).