Tyfoon "Twins" in de Pacific - Goni en Atsani

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http://www.smh.com.au/env(...)20150817-gj12y5.html
here's little sign of a let-up in this year's unusually active storm season with another two typhoons forming in the north-western Pacific.
Typhoon Goni has been upgraded to a category-4 typhoon and is forecast to reach super typhoon strength later on Monday as it moves to the northwest of Guam. That island is reported to have received about 250 millimetres of rain from the event.

The storm is likely to see sustained winds peak at about 150 knots (277 km/h) on Tuesday, with gusts reaching 180 knots (333 km/h), according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Centre.

Taiwan lies in the current forecast path of Typhoon Goni although wind speeds should drop below the 200 km/h range by the time it reaches the island on Saturday, the centre said.
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The island was hit by Typhoon Soudelor earlier in August, leaving dozens dead and widespread flood damage. Typhoon Atsani, meanwhile has also formed east of Guam, and may fall just shy of the 130-knot mark used to register super-typhoon strength. Its path remains over open water and it may weaken to below typhoon strength before reaching Japan, which lies in its current path.

Should Goni and Atsani become super typhoons at the same time, it would be the first time that twin storms of such strength have spun simultaneously since 1997, according to Anthony Sagliani, a meteorologist with AccuWeather.

Even before these two storms, there had been as many as 23 large tropical storms, six of them reaching category-5 typhoon status.

"That's considered very high for this time of the year," Andrew Watkins, head of climate prediction services at Australia's Bureau of Meteorology told Fairfax Media last week.

Big tropical storms are known as cyclones in Australia's region, hurricanes in the US region and typhoons in the north-west Pacific.
Axel Timmermann, a professor of oceanography at the University of Hawaii, said Hawaii had also been in the sights of an abnormally large number of tropical storms so far this year.
The hurricane season typically has three to five such storms a year but the island state has had warnings for that range in just June and July, Professor Timmermann said. The season runs until about October.

One factor may be the unusually warm northern Pacific, with waters around Hawaii about two degrees above average, he said. Depending on whether the storms form, they may contribute the strengthening El Nino event in the Pacific by disrupting or reversing the usual easterly trade winds that blow along the equatorial Pacific.

This year's El Nino is already rated at medium to strong by the Bureau of Meteorology, but is likely to strengthen further. "There is still a lot of momentum in the system. The time right now, between July and December, is when the El Nino grows fast," Professor Timmermann said. "I don't see any sign of a slowdown...it's shooting up straight."

An intense El Nino can lead to severe droughts in parts of the western Pacific while regions on the ocean's east often have heavily rain and floods during such events as rainfall patterns shift eastwards.

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Kwart miljoen Japanners hun huis uit om tyfoon Goni

De Japanse autoriteiten hebben ruim een kwart miljoen mensen geadviseerd tijdelijk hun huizen te verlaten vanwege een tropische storm. Door tyfoon Goni zijn volgens Japanse media meer dan twintig mensen gewond geraakt.

Het noodweer raasde dinsdag onder meer over het zuidelijke eiland Kyushu. Rukwinden en zware regenval zorgden daar voor veel overlast. Ongeveer 470.000 huishoudens kwamen zonder stroom te zitten, vluchten van en naar Kyushu zijn gecanceld en het openbaar vervoer is ontregeld.

Ook op andere plaatsen in het land hield de tyfoon huis. Zo klonk de oproep om te evacueren onder meer in prefectuur Yamaguchi, waar wordt gevreesd voor aardverschuivingen.

Filipijnen
Dezelfde storm trof zondag de Filipijnen, waar het aantal doden inmiddels is gestegen naar 21. Vijftien mensen worden daar nog vermist. De tyfoon veroorzaakte zware regenval, waardoor aardverschuivingen ontstonden.

De meeste slachtoffers vielen in de noordelijke provincie Benguet. Circa duizend huizen stortten door de tyfoon in.