25/07/2017
Cat3 &
25Wed
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We've been watching the computer forecast models for the Western Pacific very closely for the past few days. They are pretty much in agreement on Typhoon Noru, which is currently over a thousand miles east of Okinawa. Noru is swallowing up Tropical Storm Kulap, which is helping Noru to grow into an even larger typhoon. The bigger, badder Noru is then expected to slowly drift west towards Okinawa, but long before it reaches here it should stop and reverse course away from us. The forecast models also agree that Invest 99W is very likely to develop into a typhoon in the next day or two and then head north. What happens after that though is very tricky to predict, because a lot of it depends on Typhoon Noru. The bigger Noru gets and the more it drifts west, the more it will try to pull the smaller storm into its orbit and absorb it, just like it's doing now with Tropical Storm Kulap. The GFS model shows Noru staying further east, allowing 99W to escape its pull and head west across Taiwan on Friday and Saturday. The JMA, NAVGEM, and ECMWF models all show Typhoon Noru pulling 99W apart and gobbling it up before it can reach Okinawa, with Noru still remaining far enough east to avoid hitting us. The CMC model though has been consistently showing something in between, with Noru pulling 99W just far enough to to the east to make it track directly over Okinawa, passing over us from Friday all the way until Sunday. Which model will turn out to be the most correct in this instance? Who knows? It's actually possible that they've all got it wrong. The only thing that's truly for certain is that we'll all be on the edge of our seats watching and waiting to see if one of them got it exactly right.
