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Super Typhoon 18W (Jelawat), # 4

By Dave Ornauer
Published: September 23, 2012

10 a.m. Monday, Sept. 24, Japan time: Jelawat was upgraded Monday morning to super-typhoon status and has begun a slow, ponderous journey north.

It’s forecast to peak at 161-mph sustained winds and 196-mph gusts overnight Monday. Joint Typhoon Warning Center’s forecast track has Jelawat cruising directly over Ishigaki at 3 a.m. Saturday, still packing a powerful punch, 127-mph sustained winds and 155-mph gusts as it curves toward Okinawa.

How close it comes to the island is anybody’s guess; it’s still five days away and model guidance is still spread by about 400 miles. We’re keeping an eyeball on it.

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About the Author


Dave Ornauer has been with Stars and Stripes since March 5, 1981. One of his first assignments as a beat reporter in the old Japan News Bureau was “typhoon chaser,” a task which he resumed virtually full time since 2004, the year after his job, as a sports writer-photographer, moved to Okinawa and Ornauer with it.

As a typhoon reporter, Ornauer pores over Web sites managed by the Joint Typhoon Warning Center as well as U.S. government, military and local weather outlets for timely, topical information. Pacific Storm Tracker is designed to take the technical lingo published on those sites and simplify it for the average Stripes reader.