The Power of a Typhoon: Jelawat Flips Car through the Air

October 1, 2012; 6:27PM,EDT

 

 

 

 

 

Jelawat, a shadow of the mighty typhoon that earlier raked Okinawa, slammed the Japan mainland as a strong tropical storm on Sunday.
At least one person was killed on Okinawa Saturday, the Japan Times website said, but there were no reports of fatalities on the mainland.
The number of injured in Okinawa was at least 140 people, Australian ABC News website said on Monday.
Wind gusts reached 115 mph on Okinawa at the height of the storm.
Jelawat, following its Sunday evening, local time, landfall in Aichi prefecture, swept northeastward through the middle of Japan, unleashing torrential rain, damaging winds and battering waves.
In Tokyo, winds reached at least 75 mph at the Haneda Airport, data accessed by AccuWeather showed.
Rain fell at rates to 120 mm per hour (almost 5 inches per hour), according to the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA). Up to 400 mm (about 16 inches) had been forecast for southern Honshu.
Flooding led to evacuation advisories for 21,000 households in Nagoya, the Japan Times said. Evacuations were called for in the northeastern city of Ishinomaki.
Power was knocked out to tens of thousands of homes.
More than 500 flights were cancelled Sunday, and some service on the shinkansen "bullet train" was cut.
Monday, Tropical Storm Jelawat was well out to sea, east of far-northern Japan, racing towards the Aleutian Islands. Jelawat was soon to become a post-tropical storm.
Jelawat was at one time the second strongest tropical cyclone of the season in the western Pacific Basin. Only Super-typhoon Sanba was stronger.
Jelawat, also classified as a super typhoon at its height, even attained the equivalent strength of a Category 5 hurricane.
The powerful storm earlier brought flooding rains to Taiwan (over a foot fell in places), followed by making a direct landfall over Okinawa, Japan.
This week, the western Pacific basin will continue to be active with respect to tropical cyclones. Already, as of Monday, a new tropical storm, dubbed Maliksi, was gathering strength near the Mariana Islands.
Maliksi was forecast to veer east of Japan late in the week.
Another area of unsettled weather, this one in the South China Sea, was eyed by forecasters for its development potential.