Something Big Brewing? Usagi - Formosahut forum

This seems to have sprung up pretty suddenly which is often a sign that it's gonna be big.
Would also seem to be in Position A to end up affecting Taiwan.
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The JTWC has the low in between those two masses of clouds. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.

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I am pretty sure it's going to be a big one but at this stage CWB has it staying well east of us and going directly up to Japan.

Dan, you could have won your beer back there - looked like it was gonna really be something but never got going. I assume the rain we got this morning was connected to it, and it was marked as a low finally, but nothing special. Seems the lows are struggling to really take off this year.
Meanwhile, there is something coming that does look interesting. There are two more lows out there - the first is predicted to go north - but then there's another behind it and looking at the weather chart there's a big fat high that's supposed to move in and sit there - that cuts out any poleward escape and should send it in out direction. dbjf can create a cross wind problem at this time of the year, but we;ll see how we go.

This is the forecast chart for about next wed.

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Yes it's shaping up to be a very interesting finale to the typhoon season. I think it's still packing a punch. That system just off our coast is going to sit there and mess with us for a while. I don't think it's going to amount to much, but we could get a lot more rain dumped on us. The storm NEE of Taiwan heading to Japan is highly unusual. Southern Japan could be in for a lashing.

I do remember a couple of years where everything seemed to go to japan, but i see now that that's actually pretty unusual. That little low is hanging around - surprised we haven't had a bit more rain out of it - as soon as CWB reacted to that downpour we had on tues morning and upped their pop and issued heavy rain warnings we haven't had a drop.

Meanwhile, the other low i was talking about is still on track to develop and impact us, maybe directly. This is way off in the future, next fri, but has it coming pretty much straight at us. And with that high sitting above it, i doubt it's gonna recurve and head north east. Not good news for moon festival bbq-ers.

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Yeah, that's looking like it could pack a punch.

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this is where it is meant to be by Friday evening and i am assuming it will be a full-blown typhoon by then. if it gathers all that rain up it's going to be quite dangerous. forecast for the eye to just miss southern taiwan at this point but if it drifts any further north then it will have a serious impact here.
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That looks like it has formed an eye. Should be due for an unpgrade on jtwc to tropical storm at least Seems to be stacks of moisture around it still to be gathered up.

Even if the eye stays just to the south of taiwan as predicted, that outer rain band looks impressive and could well plough into us at full speed and in a sustained fashion. Definitely something that needs to be prepared for.

Dan, you better get all those pots and pans ready to catch your leaks. Seriously though, we need to watch this one.

(And another behind it that seems to be following a similar trajectory.)

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Yes indeed, Usagi should be taken very seriously. There seems to be disagreement among the models at this point regarding how close it will come to us, but any of the models below spells trouble. The JTWC forecast is below as well.

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3. FORECAST REASONING.
A. THIS IS THE INITIAL PROGNOSTIC REASONING AND SETS THE FORECAST
PHILOSOPHY.
B. TD 17W IS EXPECTED TO SLOWLY TRACK WESTWARD AS THE REMNANTS OF
TS 16W MOVE TO THE NORTHEAST. THE STR IS EXPECTED TO REBUILD TO THE
NORTH OF TD 17W ALLOWING FOR THE SYSTEM TO INCREASE IN TRACK SPEED
OVER THE NEXT 36 TO 48 HOURS. THE SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURES ALONG THE
FORECAST TRACK ARE FAVORABLE (29 TO 30 CELSIUS) FOR DEVELOPMENT
THROUGHOUT THE FORECAST PERIOD. THE UPPER LEVEL TUTT CELL WILL
CONTINUE TO ENHANCE THE EASTWARD OUTFLOW THROUGH TAU 36 AS IT TRACKS
TO THE WEST-NORTHWEST OVER THE NEXT FEW DAYS. THERE IS SOME CONCERN
REGARDING THE INTERACTION BEYOND TAU 48 AS TD 17W AND THE TUTT CELL
TRACK ON SEPARATE BEARINGS. MODERATELY FAVORABLE OUTFLOW WILL
CONTINUE TO ENHANCE THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SYSTEM THROUGH TAU 72.
C. IN THE EXTENDED TAUS, TD 17W WILL CONTINUE TO TRACK ALONG THE
SOUTHERN PERIPHERY OF THE STR, TOWARDS THE SOUTHERN TIP OF TAIWAN.
THE OVERALL ENVIRONMENT IS EXPECTED TO REMAIN FAVORABLE THROUGH TAU
96, BUT SHORTLY BEFORE TAU 120, LAND INTERACTION WITH TAIWAN WILL
CAUSE A BRIEF WEAKENING OF THE SYSTEM. NUMERIC MODEL GUIDANCE IS IN
FAIR AGREEMENT WITH THE GENERAL WESTWARD TRACK THROUGH TAU 72, BUT
INDICATES A LARGE VARIATION IN THE AMOUNT OF INTERACTION THE STR
WILL PLAY AS TD 17W APPROACHES TAIWAN. THE CURRENT FORECAST TRACK IS
BASED ON THE CONSENSUS OF AVAILABLE MODEL GUIDANCE. DUE TO THE POOR
INITIAL POSITION CONFIDENCE AND VARIATIONS IN MODEL GUIDANCE, THERE
IS LOW CONFIDENCE IN THE FORECAST TRACK.//
NNNN

Seems we have lift off. Interesting that jtwc has separated itself from the pack and gone for the more northern track.
Forecast to come very close to the southern tip and reach speeds of 100kts - that's about 180kph. Travelling speed looks not too bad, which will spare us the extended play mix.
Dan, i am saying the obvious, but you need to think about that cutaway rise beside your house.
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Yes I agree. I'm mostly worried about that phone pole that looks like it might fall down if as much as a sparrow flies into it. We're going to have the gate open, car situated ready for an escape, and bags packed.

I just realized this will be hitting during the full moon, and the full moon that I believe is happening at the fall equinox. I believe, though I need to verify, that full moons on an equinox create even greater tidal surges. Is that right?

The Moon Festival takes place during the full moon of the equinox, right? Yes, just verified. Full moon is on the 19th, Moon Festival day, and the equinox is on Sept. 23rd.

UPDATE: Yes, I've been doing some searches, and apparently a full moon during an equinox can produce some extraordinary tides. Now we have a full moon, an equinox, and a typhoon. Granted, the full moon isn't happening on the exact day of the equinox, but they're pretty darn close, with the typhoon sandwiched right in between.

Tags:
equinox, full moon

Better get down to the Miramar hotel and get ready with my camera!

Looks like things will start on Friday night and peak sat morning, which is the 21st. Is a king tide a one day thing or is it high for a period around that? Does it also correspond with an extra low tide, or is low tide higher than normal as well?

Latest JTWC track has moved closer towards us, now making landfall in southern taiwan. Wind speed forecast has jumped to 115kts, which is 213kph! Hang onto your hat - and your roof. But the greatest threat still comes from the rain. If it holds that path, and it probably will, more-or-less, then this is now a full bunker down preparation typhoon.

The chickens and i make a good team - i dug out the drains today to try and prevent their shed from being washed away - they gleefully did their best to scratch in the fresh dirt and fill them in again.

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Good questions about tides. I don't know really. I assume a high tide is a one-day event, but that the tides on either side of that day are higher than usual. I may be wrong. I also just read that there is no such thing as a tidal surge, only a storm surge. A high tide is a high tide, but it's higher during a full moon, and even higher when that full moon coincides with an equinox. So throwing a storm surge on top of that mix would seem to intensify things still. But perhaps that couple of days difference between the full moon and equinox is enough to make any complementary effect minimal. I guess we'll find out!

Yes, this is looking more ominous with every passing hour. I have to work all day tomorrow so Thursday will be preparation day. I suspect we'll be getting something by then.

This is an escaped blob of typhoon which is impacting the north east and may give us some rain later as well. Looking at the precipitation graphic it could dump well over 100mil by itself and possibly even close the Su Hwa.

Last night around 11pm the wind switched to the west briefly and came roaring down off the mountains - some seriously strong porch clearing gusts - but didn't last long.

Latest JTWC has lowered the track back the southern tip of taiwan, but upped the wind speed again to 130 kts (241 kph!). This could go all the way to a cat 4 or even 5.

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General consensus of tracks now has it going south of Taiwan, so we can probably dial back the alarm a little bit. however, CWB is the odd one out. Whereas it previously had it going south, it has now changed to having it hit southern taiwan. Not sure if that's just coz it's slow to catch on or they have some other reasoning.

Yes but the consensus has it moving closer to the southern tip of Taiwan than it did 48 hours ago. Whereas the earlier model spread had it going anywhere from just south of Taitung city to way off the southern tip of Taiwan, they are all now sending it here to our southern peninsula. We're in for a storm.

Then well done CWB. they were the only ones who had it coming here 5 hours ago. That 'escaped blob' has exploded on the north east coast. It's like an opening salvo and shows that this typhoon is carrying massive rain.
Lots of thunder and lightning here, but no real rain so far, thoug looks eminent. But what a place! Out drinking with the Amis real estate lao ban celebrating the buying of the business, hot, sweaty, beers, singing, lightning everywhere, long rolling thunder, full moon, huge typhoon lurking out to sea ... very Taiwan.

Radar:
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Rainfall so far today:
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Dan, i just checked the forecast model site that i use and although one has branched back to Taiwan, the rest are still solidly agreeing on the more southerly track. Where did you get your info from?
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I was looking at http://www.typhoon2000.ph/multi/?name=USAGI, but models seem to have shifted south since yesterday evening. We got hammered here last night by 'the blob'. If that's any indication of things to come, I need to do some waterproofing.

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Yeah, and CWB was just lagging - they have moved their track south as well in line with the others. Still looks like we are going to get plenty to go on with.

Even though the models are moving farther south, the JTWC says in it's prognosis that, "OVERALL, THERE IS LOW CONFIDENCE IN THE FORECAST TRACK AS THE STR CONTINUES TO BUILD IN AND RE-ORIENT ITSELF."

Yeah, and just noticed more disparity in the latest set of models. There does seem to be a cold front that has breached the high, which in theory should creat a weakness in the ridge and allow the typhoon to move more northward.
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And there's another one coming through just behind this!
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Now JTWC is wavering back to the north. They're swinging like a pendulum the last couple of days.

And maximum gusts of 170 kts! 315kph!!!! That's like a massive tornado.

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"Super typhoon Megi was threatening TW for over a week, without actually coming here. Went through northern PPE as cat 5, stalled on other side, then went up TW strait in weakened form and finally made a second landfall in China as cat 1-2.

In SC, the big rain came on the Sat night, Oct 16, just before it entered PPE. Torrential rain for 5-6 hours – about 200 ml.
Five days later, as the typhoon was stalled between PPE and China, Ilan was clobbered with 947 ml of rain in a day, 2500ml + over that five day period. This was caused by broken off blobs from the typhoon colliding with the north east monsoon resulting in torrential downpours. This is probably what they mean when they say autumn typhoons are the most dangerous.

Previously I had thought the dbjf to be a typhoon killer, due to the cross winds interfering with its structure, but it seems an interaction with the outer bands can also cause tremendous rainfall.

Not surprisingly, the Su-Ao to Hualien highway was a total disaster zone – two buses went over the edge and 450 people were stranded. So far 25 people are confirmed dead."

This current typhoon bears some similarities to Megi, a massive late season typhoon from 2010. The scary bit is that Usagi is a lot closer! On the positive side, it doesn't have that wicked poleward outflow that Megi had.
Megi
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Usagi
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Very cool comparison. Those sat shots look amazingly similar.

Usagi now has sustained winds of up to 140 knots. Guess I'll put the lawn chairs away... and the washing machine.

Well, the JTWC has high confidence in the track, but this system doesn't. See http://www.cyclocane.com/usagi-spaghetti-models/. It changes hourly.

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Wild wind and rain, but not as bad as the typhoon last year. Probably gusting up around the 100kph mark and intermitent downpours. Not enough to do too much damage so far. Took a drive down south to check things out and was amazed to find that the Chinese tourists were still filing into Water Running Up, though the road leading up to it was out and had become a river of stones. Could be renamed Stones Running Down.

A far better tourist attraction was a roadside stop a bit further south. Enormous, awe inspiring waves - like having a front row seat in a 3D disaster movie. Was the only one there this morning, but when i returned with a couple of tourists i'd met earlier, there were 4-5 cars there. Think i will go back again and open a Chinese sausage stand.

Checked out Miramar - waves were crashing up against the swimming pool but not going through the hotel when i was there, which was 9am, high tide. However, there did seem to be significant erosion taking place in front of the hotel and i suspect it is gonna have a kind of teetering look when the water recedes.

Most dangerous place in Taiwan would seem to be the southern tip of the east coast. Radar has that getting pummeled with virtual eye-wall wind and rain at the moment. Would expect some serious damage reports coming out of kending area.
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Looks like a strong outflow is developing up the coast - we could be in for a wild night of rain yet. 500 plus mil in pingdong, but big falls all along the east coast right up to Ilan. 179 mm in the rain guage here until 9pm. By contrast, Taijhong has remained dry.

Seems to be moving at a pretty slow pace and definitely has the potential to cause landslides in pingdong, and even here if this keeps up all night.

Wind is still going in fits and bursts, but rain has become more sustained in last few hours.
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Rainfall. Interesting that the highest totals come from different pockets in different counties stretching all the way from pingdong to illan.
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This radar image is a bit alarming. Puts us right in the firing line of a lot of rain.
We could be the hardest hit of anywhere over the next 12 hours.

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