Still, I was surprised that what was essentially a tropical storm for us, with some typhoon-strength gusts, took down electricity for the majority of the island for over two days in addition to water for a lot of people. Many are still without services. It's just one of the drawbacks of living on a small, remote island.

Luxury. Ex-tropical storm Alfred made landfall around here last year packing winds of 50-60kph (max gust on the coast of 90kph) & knocked out power to over 800 000 homes, costing billions.
The modern world, in Aus at least, is ridiculously flimsy.

You'd think underground lines would be a good idea in Guam - it's not like it's that big.

Was going to post a photo of damage in Saipan, but i can't tell what's AI generated or real anymore.

Still, I was surprised that what was essentially a tropical storm for us, with some typhoon-strength gusts, took down electricity for the majority of the island for over two days in addition to water for a lot of people. Many are still without services. It's just one of the drawbacks of living on a small, remote island.

Yutu, in 2018 also hit Saipan (in Oct, the other end of the season), so it's not quite as uncommon as i thought. Interestingly, 2018 was also an El Nino year.

Before that, you've got to go back to 1968 & typhoon Jean (the start of an El Nino) for a storm of similar strength.

80mph winds in Guam is serious, especially when it's dragged out. 2&1/2 days to get internet, power back on is not bad going. Saipan would have been fucking scary. That got totally smashed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7L11cAGSIg

And it slowed to a crawl while it was passing, 3mph for quite a while. The highest gusts here were in the mid 80's mph, with sustained 40-50 I think, but it lasted a long time.

The media won't pick this up at all being Guam and Saipan, but I expect to see some pretty tragic scenes out of Saipan and the other islands.

EDIT: Better footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WC6Hw-C8YY .

JTWC has the eye passing east of Guam but close. Spaghetti models range it even closer. Take care.

Can you feel it already?

The big news in mid-east Aus is the El Nino, which has turned one of the wettest places on the planet in April into a dry zone. How does El Nino effect Guam, if at all?

EDIT: From AI - April typhoons on Guam are uncommon. The peak typhoon risk runs June–December (highest Aug–Nov); only a small fraction of Western North Pacific tropical cyclones affect Guam in April. Historically, typhoons or tropical storms near Guam in April occur only a few times per several decades (occasional April storms exist but are rare compared with the peak season).