Earth's largest Typhoon of
2014, Vongfong, is about to take landfall in mainland Japan this weekend.
Currently, the typhoon is pounding Okinawa all the way to Kyushu Island as its
main entry towards the Land of the Rising Sun. As of 6 AM Japanese time today,
the storm is said to have weaken a bit but it still has a maximum sustained winds
of 241 kph downgrading in the Category 4 typhoon cluster.
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| Reid Wiseman Twitter @astro_reid |
Astronaut Reid Wiseman
posted on its Twitter account the appalling beauty of the typhoon prompting that
he has seen many of the same typhoon patterns but it has never been as big as
Vongfong. Its eye seem to fall somewhere between 48 to 80 kilometers in
diameter. The storm will pass through the Southern Island of Okinawa as a
category 3 typhoon and will move north-northest on Sunday afternoon.
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| Image from NASA |
Vongfong is a
slower-moving storm with at least 12 kph of speed. This could bring the threat
of water with 20 inches of rain in areas that have been struck by Typhoon
Phanfone a week ago.
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| Image from JWTC |
The path of
Vongfong will churn the entire of Japan - hitting even the mountainous areas.
It is expected to be downgraded to a tropical depression once it will reach
Tokyo.
