Typhoon Tembin - Formosahut forum

Weird yo-yo track. Don't think i've seen anything like this before. Obviously very uncertain where it will go, but will be interesting to watch. The one behind it still looks like it could be a much bigger event.
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It looks like it may have finally started its move north. It certainly has organized better in the last few hours.

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Creeping a bit further south according to this, but check out the possible error zone. Have you ever seen it as big as that?

No I don't remember seeing any error zone that large, especially for what was previously being described as a small storm. I'm beginning to wonder to what extent Tembin is going to interact with the low behind it which is clearly developing rapidly. There's a chance that that low could outpace Tembin, move north and we could end up getting next to nothing. Wouldn't that be something for the books.

Having said that, we have all that monsoonal moisture west of the Philippines that's going to get sucked up by Tembin, so even if it takes a more poleward path, we should still get something. As it stands, the models have it coming right at us. How often are they right so far in advance? At least they've covered their asses with that error zone encompassing nearly the entire eastern hemisphere.

As it stands, the models have it coming right at us. How often are they right so far in advance?

Yeah, very rarely.

Noticed from the weather maps that some cold fronts are coming into play to the north.
Haven't seen them since the mei yu.
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There's been a dramatic revision of the expected wind speed for Tembin. Previously it was forecast to only reach max gust speeds of 80kts, but they are now predicting 140kts! That's well over 200kph. Looks like this is the big one! It's still not a huge typhoon, size wise, but anywhere that gets a direct hit is gonna know about it.
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Gusts up to 160kts! That's 296kph. I don't think they make them much faster than that.

Hate to say it, but hard to see it hitting us from that position. Would seem to already be too far north. It has started to turn, but just slightly, not enough to bring it here. My guess is it's heading for Ilan, like they usually do.
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Does seem to have tracked sharply left overnight, so we're still in with a chance. Interestingly CWB is giving us a 'Comfortable' rating on the 'Comfort Index', and 60% chance of rain for tonight and tomorrow. Not sure how 'comfortable' it's going to be and would have thought 60% was too low given that a typhoon is bearing down.

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Remain slighly dubious about the wind speed. Doesn't seem to have a well enough defined eye to be doing the super typhoon speeds that they're saying. Time will tell i guess.

BTW, has this typhoon broken into two. that thing to the north, which is still part of the system, looks comparable in size.

I'm expecting a fairly strong storm. The 'farmer index' is high. They were doing more preparations the last couple of days than they did all last season, including trimming back all the trees and screwing the lid to the water tank on so it doesn't blow off. They also told us to sleep downstairs. Not sure if that means they think the roof might blow off or what. (Actually, it's just extremely, really profoundly noisy sleeping under a metal roof in a typhoon. In fact one can forget about sleeping at all.)

Been doing prep work all day - i'll be bloody annoyed if it doesn't kick up now. I think it's gonna be a short, sharp affair though. If you compare it to Bolaven (the one behind it), it doesn't look that big.

Still dead calm here at the moment. Classic 'calm before the storm'. Though on the sat it seems to be right on our doorstep so expecting winds and rain to start soon - but doesn't look that dark at the moment. My guess is wind will come from the north east first, then switch to the south once the eye passes.

I can't believe it but it looks like Tembin has stalled. Unbelievable. I saw this possibility mentioned in one of the Taiwan English papers - that Tembin might stall due to interaction with Bolaven. All bets are off.

That 60% chance of rain is absurd. It's already drizzling here and they issued a land warning at least six hours ago. The issuance of a land warning while giving only a 60% of rain is completely contradictory.

Maybe they should have a look at their own radar.

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Yeah, that was a weird call from CWB - in fact they lowered it from 60% to 50% for today, which beggared belief.

Here's a comparison of Tembin and Morakot, both on approach. Would seem to show that Tembin is not in that league. Expecting a short sharp typhoon with very strong winds near the centre, but once the eye passes it should be all but over.

Disclaimer: If it happens to stall over the top of us, then we're stuffed.

Wow, just got the first decent gust. Think it might be 'game on' from here.

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Somebody somewhere is going to get very, very wet.

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On your marks! Set! Stall.

Looks like they think it's gonna loop. With this drop in speed, it actually becomes a much more dangerous event - if it does ever make it here.

Still no wind and no rain here. But sky does have that eerie colr and feel to it.

The JTWC has recently upped the predicted speed to gusts of 145 knots when it hits us. It had lowered the speed considerably.

The JTWC has recently upped the predicted speed to gusts of 145 knots when it hits us. It had lowered the speed considerably.

Yeah, i noticed the eye has become more distinct. Doesn't look to be tons of rain in it from the radar image, but that could change as well.

Just started raining lightly here - up from the faint drizzle of this morning. Wind is negligible, coming from north west.

First decent gust came through abt 7.30. The amazing thing was that the first gusts, about 40-50kph, came out of a virtual dead calm. I'd say 'without any preliminaries', but i think that was the preliminary coz 30 mins later it has already kicked up considerably from there with some big house shakers coming through that i'd estimate to be 80+kmp.

Wow, just had one over 100kmp, biggest one yet. This is gonna be exciting. Already equal if not faster than what we got with Saola.

Hang onto your hats - and rooves!

I think 11pm till early afternoon tomorrow will be wild. And if this thing loops around and comes back at us, well, let's just say that will be interesting. Theoretically it could pick up a lot of moisture in the strait, then there's the Bolaven factor. Right now I just hope our roof makes it through the next 12 hours.

Looking at the radar, i think the eye is going to be here before the predicted time of around noon tomorrow - maybe even as early as dawn this morning. It seems to have picked up speed in the last couple of hours and also seems to have gathered more moisture. The tail, or the southern outflow, has grown, especially.

Getting some quite unnerving, massive gusts now. Once it gets to that sustained, eye-wall bit, the roof is really going to get a work out. Biggest wind i've experienced since i've been living here.
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Now i'm convinced CWB was way off with their prediction of a noon landfall for the eye. Looking at the radar (more obvious if you animate it) i'd say it's gonna get here in the next few hours. Winds are getting stronger and more sustained - we're getting pretty close to eye-wall right now.
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Eye ducking a little south in last two hours. Been for a drive around but biggest wind is right here. Getting eye-wall wind right now. Sustained massive gusts. Roof is rattling but still on - don't know how much more of this it can take though.
With eye going to the south of us we are going to get the extended play mix of eye-wall winds. If they would just switch around to the other direction that would be something coz i've got water coming in through the windows and flooding the house.
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It's 3 in the morning and the eye is continuing to move south, like it's searching out a bit more sea before it has to head inland. Around Dawu must really be getting hammered. The eye is just grazing the coast there. Thought i detected a slight lessening of the wind here in the last 5 minutes, but a thunderous gust just came through. There's literally a roar to the wind. To be honest, i've just about had enough excitement and looking for a bit of respite. Looking at the radar, we should be over the worst of it now as it pulls away from us. Power just flickered on and off. Gonna take a nap for a couple of hours and get up and check it out at daylight.
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Tembin made landfall around 5am across the southern tip of Taiwan. Travelled quite a way south down the coast before eventually crossing - well, i say eventually, but it was 7 hours before it was predicted to do so by CWB. As such it only needs to traverse a thin strip of land which should allow it to maintain structure and regenerate once it gets back over ocean.

The situation here is that the wind has dropped off considerably and is no longer a danger, but the rain is still torrential and could present problems. Frequent rumbling of thunder outside. Wind coming from east.

Highest rainfall so far (since yesterday) is 237ml at Fuli in Hualien. Though there have been places in Pingdong that have had 200ml since midnight and they will most likely end up with the most rainfall and face the greatest risk of landslides and flooding.

Just checked rain guage and there's been 162 ml in XC since it started raining yesterday. Expect this to go up to about 250ml by the time it's finished.

Wind has dropped off further in last 10 mins and may be changing direction.

I see Mike had the night shift, the fun one at that. We lost power at about 11pm, so we couldn't follow the storm, but it kept us awake most of the night. A structure on the roof of the building next to us flew off and took our phone line with it. I just got that hooked back up. The phone line was under lots of debris but fortunately was still hot. Power came on early this morning, I'm guessing around 4:30. Our mountain water line was knocked out, and our landlord had closed our city water, idiot, (he has a key to a box on 11 allowing him to shut it off) so at one point we were without power, water, or phone.

Lots of cleaning up to do around here.

And the motorcycle did get blown over and rained on for hours. Damn.

Dan, glad to hear you made it through! I was getting concerned and about to send out the search party.

Anyway, it was definitely an attention getter. My fences have all been destroyed and several trees down but the hard day's work of staking the coffee plants paid off pretty well.

What's going on now? It's pouring rain - heavier than the actual passing of the typhoon, but when you look at the radar there's nothing showing here.

Hell, it's just raised a notch at that. This is flooding, landslide rain now. We're not out of the woods on this one yet.

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Tembin is definitely getting into the 'weirdest track ever' territory.

Meanwhile, it seems to have become a dangerous rain typhoon along the way. Despite the high winds, we were pretty much spared that sustained torrential rain thing that sets off landslides, but that may be about to change judging by the intensity of the downfalls we've had in the last 12 hours. If it comes back this way, as it's currently predicted to do, then we need to get back on high alert.

Places in Pingdong have already copped 700+ml in the last two days - that's a level that can cause severe damage.
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Yea this could end up being a far more destructive storm than originally thought. All models have it looping around and heading north up the east coast, a bizarre scenario. It looks like Pingtung County is once again going to get the brunt of rainfall, assuming this track plays out. This is indeed one for the books.

It was a good thing we didn't have to evacuate yesterday. The roads were all blocked with trees!

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