Supertyphoon Sinlaku has trended north away from Guam since Friday, and has probably reached its maximum intensity of 155 knots (a Category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson scale) and should start to weaken. The last time a storm this strong was seen this early in the season was 1953. Sinlaku a huge, impressive storm, here on Infrared as the sun has set in the Pacific …
Tracking models are fairly tight, showing the storm crossing over the Northern Mariana Islands near Tinian and Saipan:
There are about 200 thousand people within the damage swath, mostly on Guam, which is currently forecast to be on the southern edge of the storm with winds peaking at just below hurricane force in about 24 hours. Further north, Tinian and Saipan should expect to experience Category 3 conditions – 125 knot winds. Given the path of the storm, and despite it decaying as it recurves, almost all of the islands in the chain should experience tropical storm conditions or greater. Damages likely in the hundreds of millions of dollars, which doesn’t seem like a lot compared to the billions a US landfall can rack up, but given the sparse populations will be significant.