Super Typhoon 17W (Sanba), # 15: Okinawa enters TCCOR 2
Published: September 14, 2012
Midnight Friday, Sept. 14, Japan time: Tropical Cyclone Condition of Readiness 2 was declared for Okinawa at midnight Friday.
After rapidly intensifying by 60 knots overnight Thursday to a peak of 155 knots Friday – the strongest I’ve ever witnessed in nearly 10 years of doing this – Super Typhoon Sanba’s intensity has diminished by 20 knots in the last 12 hours as it trudges north at about 13 mph.
Also, Sanba’s track has taken it due north for a tad longer than the Joint Typhoon Warning Center forecast earlier.
And Sanba’s most fierce wind bands, the 64-knot inner band and 50-knot middle band, look as though they’re going to gradually consolidate close to the storm’s eye, sort of like what happened with Bolaven.
That is NOT to say that Sanba was or will be all bark and no bite, kind of how Bolaven was last month. Never, ever take that attitude. Avoid complacency at all cost. As I’ve been admonishing all week, all it takes is one storm to be the “next Bart.”
Sanba is still a mighty, Category 4-equivalent storm, featuring visibly strong convective banding with a well-defined 14-mile-wide eye. Sanba is forecast to Samba 6 miles west of Kadena Air Base at about 6 a.m. Sunday, packing sustained 132-mph winds and 161-mph gusts at its center. JTWC forecasts Sanba to start tracking north-northwest again soon, picking up forward speed and raking Okinawa with 58-mph-plus winds and gusts starting late Saturday evening.
As for Korea, the wind parameters have changed little; Sanba is forecast to slam ashore near Mokpo on Korea’s south-southwest coast around mid-day Monday, remaining a Category 2-equivalent storm packing 104-mph winds and 127-mph gusts. Refer to previous blog posts for closest points of approach to the various U.S. bases on the Korean peninsula.
