Florida and the surrounding states have been lucky enough to avoid any hurricanes so far, but one country in East Asia has not been so fortunate. Typhoon Soulik is a strong and rather unusual storm, making landfall on Japan’s Ryukyu Islands. A typhoon approaching Japan in late August is quite strange, but the size of the storm — rather, the storm’s eye — caught on satellite imagery is very big.
According to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center’s forecast, Typhoon Soulik has maximum winds of 115 MPH, making the storm the equivalent of a strong category two on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. Soulik made landfall Japan’s Ryukyu Islands — the chain of small islands south of Kyushu — on August 21, and will rage through before curving north toward the Korean Peninsula the next day.
A “typical” typhoon will consist of a small eye surrounded by a thick eyewall that features the heaviest rain and strongest winds of the storm. Rainbands radiate away from the eyewall, gradually growing weaker farther away from the center of the storm. But for Soulik, it’s all eyewall. Radar imagery from Amami shows that there are hardly any rainbands radiating away from the center.
Since making landfall, Typhoon Soulik has wreaked havoc to the islands, causing damage and knocking out power in the city of Amami, on the island of Amami Oshima. As a result, evacuation preparation information will be issued to 6,702 households and 12,551 people in Yakushima.
By: Maytinee Kramer
