FLHurricane.com: TS Chanchu

#26 is out, and no change to the point of landfall. Current intensity is set at 135kts to increase to max of 140kts.

Hong Kong will start to feel tropical storm force winds by early Wednesday morning, but wind will become gusty and the weather will worsen about 12 hours before that, by Tuesday evening.

The typhoon may speed up as it approaches land and so these effects could occur earlier. To give an example, with Katrina, they were 12 hours earlier than forecast three days before. So unless that's a really early aft flight Tiff he should be looking for an earlier one. And if he can't fly off the island, rent a car and drive off -- get off the islands and get inland.

Since JTWC did not change the track significantly, and since some of the good models are showing a landfall slightly more to the west, this looks like a bad one. Looks like it could hit at a pretty high intensity. Because of the monsoon there is no dry air to cause dry air intrusion (thanks for letting me know that, Steve)...the only inhibiting factor besides the timing of ERCs is the cooler water offshore, and that effect will be minimized if the speed increases. And if it is coming in at 130, 125 kts, well then it wouldn't make much difference if it weakened to 115 kts as that would still be devestating.

This hasn't been in the news much, and I can only hope that people there are preparing for the worst -- and 'worst' may be worse than anything we've seen here by orders of magnitude.

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Update -- here is the prog, and it is interesting:

A. SUPER TYPHOON (STY) 02W (CHANCHU), LOCATED APPROXIMATELY 495 NM SOUTH OF HONG KONG, HAS TRACKED NORTHWESTWARD AT 04 KNOTS OVER THE PAST 06 HOURS.

B. STY 02W HAD CONTINUED TO SLOWLY TRACK WESTWARD AND IS JUST NOW STARTING TO SHIFT POLEWARD IN RESPONSE TO A WEAKNESS IN THE SUBTRO- PICAL STEERING RIDGE (STR) ANCHORED OVER SOUTHEASTERN CHINA. THE SYSTEM IS FORECAST TO TRACK NORTHWARD ALONG THE WESTERN PERIPHERY OF THE STR AND IS FORECAST TO MAKE LANDFALL BETWEEN TAUS 48 AND 72. THE AVAILABLE DYNAMIC AIDS, CONSISTING OF NOGAPS, GFDN, AFWA MM5, COAMPS, NCEP GFS, JGSM, JTYM, EGRR, TCLAPS AND WBAR ARE IN GOOD AGREEMENT WITH THIS SCENARIO.

C. STY 02W WILL ONLY SLIGHTLY INTENSIFY OVER THE NEXT 12 HOURS AND WILL MAINTAIN SUPER TYPHOON INTENSITY FOR THE NEXT 24 TO 36 HOURS AS THE SYSTEM REMAINS IN A FAVORABLE ENVIRONMENT OF EXCELLENT RADIAL OUTFLOW INCLUDING AN EASTWARD OUTFLOW CHANNEL PROVIDED BY AN UPPER LEVEL LOW LOCATED APPROXIMATELY 300NM EAST OF THE PHILIPPINES. AS THE SYSTEM APPROACHES LAND IT WILL UNDERGO RAPID DECREASE IN INTENSITY AND BEGIN TO UNDERGO THE EARLY STAGES OF EXTRA-TROPICAL TRANSITION.

That's very good news. That must be quite a stretch of cool water offshore. I've only been watching since last July but needless to say I've never heard of anything like that. I don't know what else would additionally factor into the transition (lack of experience...if any mets are reading this thread and could post some more detail on an explanation it would be very much appreciated).

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Katrina's Surge: http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/Katrinas_surge_contents.asp

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