Kaijiki headed to Vietnam, Flooding across GA/SC coast

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In the hurricane/typhoon world, the Atlantic is calming down after the Erin passage. Tropical Storm Fernand remains disorganized and far enough from Bermuda that the National Hurricane Center did not post any watches/warnings (and there are no “Key Messages.” Invest AL99 (disturbance #1 on NHC’s tropical weather outlook) might briefly become a depression or low end tropical storm but odds are only 40% and it will be entering an unfavorable environment.

Satellite image showing the Atlantic Ocean with the Tropical Storm Fernand and the Invest AL99 area, indicating a 40% chance of development into a depression or tropical storm.

Typhoon Kaijiki is just south of Hainan Island, headed for the Vietnamese coast …

Satellite image showing Typhoon Kaijiki south of Hainan Island, with visible cloud patterns and geographical features of Southeast Asia, including Vietnam and the Philippines.

Impacts should be between $200 and $300 Million USD.

Forecast map for Typhoon Kaijiki, showing projected path, wind swath, and estimated economic impacts of $200-$300 million USD along the Vietnamese coast.

The storm is a bit stronger than forecast yesterday, but also a off the coast of Hainan rather than making a direct hit. Vietnam landfall is also now forecast to be a bit further south and coastal flooding looks to be a bit less, thus the lower impact estimates despite a slightly stronger storm.

The stalled front along the GA/SC coastline has dumped a lot of rain in places over the last three days. Here are the 72 hour (three day) totals as of 6am this morning:

Map showing 72-hour rain totals in the southeastern United States, highlighting areas like Savannah and Frogmore with varying rainfall amounts.

The islands just east of Frogmore got over 8″ of rain, and lot of Charleston area (~40 miles north of Frogmore) 8 to 10″ of rain as well. While Savannah itself is in a bit of a drier island (the Enki office near Daffin Park saw only 1.63″), parts of Wilmington Island saw over 7″, as did Pooler, and areas near Richmond Hill were over 7″ as well. The local storm reports from the Charleston NWS office has dozens of flooding reports over the weekend.

Map showing low-level reflectivity with locations such as Savannah, Frogmore, and Charleston indicated, along with areas of precipitation off the coast.

While there is still some rain north of Charleston, most of the heavier showers should be offshore and starting tomorrow there should be several dry days coming.

For those who may have missed it, I wrote a brief screed yesterday discussing how unusual (or not) the recent rains have been.

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