Twin Typhoons Expected to Develop in Western Pacific; Saipan Could Get Hit Again

Jon Erdman
Published: August 13,2015

Just one week after Typhoon Soudelor raked Saipan, Taiwan, Japan's Ryukyu Islands and southeast China, the tropical western Pacific is recharging, with a pair of systems both likely to become twin typhoons in the days ahead.
(SOUDELOR RECAPS: Impacts | Reports | Images | Rain Visualization)

Infrared Satellite: Twin Systems

This pair of tropical lows, dubbed Invest 97W and 98W, are located several hundred miles east of the Mariana Islands, including Guam and Saipan.
(MORE: What is an Invest?)
Each is well organized with thunderstorms bubbling up near what appears to be at least a mid-level circulation center in satellite imagery.
(FLASHBACK: Six Tropical Cyclones At Once)
With low wind shear, a moist atmosphere and ample ocean heat content, each of these tropical disturbances is expected to develop into a tropical storm, then a typhoon in the coming days.
The first storm to become a tropical storm would be named Goni. The second would be Atsani.

Saipan/Guam Threat

A girl helps her parents repair their storm-damaged home by removing nails from plywood on Saturday, Aug. 8, 2015, in Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands.
(AP Photo/Daniel Lin)

Guam/Marianas Radar

The most immediate concern will be with Invest 97W, the system farthest west, as it approaches the Marianas this weekend.
This couldn't be worse news for Saipan, still struggling to recover from Typhoon Soudelor.














The Pacific News Center reported about 4,000 households in Saipan, or over 25 percent, have requested assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Power outages and a lack of running water and food have plagued the 44-square-mile island about 135 miles northeast of Guam since an intensifying Soudelor hit the island square on Aug. 2.
(WATCH: Saipan Struggles After Soudelor)
Invest 97W appears likely to organize to at least a tropical depression or tropical storm and should be strengthening by the time it arrives in the Marianas this weekend.
As a result, bands of locally heavy rain are possible Saturday through Monday in Guam and the northern Marianas. In fact, Doppler radar from Guam already indicated a shield of heavier rain pushing toward the Marianas well ahead of the disturbance.
This slow-moving system may not clear the islands until Monday.
The wind impacts are still quite uncertain at this time, dependent on the degree the system can intensify through Monday.
(FORECAST: Guam | Saipan)

Two Threats to Asia Ahead?

Once the western system departs the Marianas, as has happened already this season, rapid intensification is possible, with the system possibly attaining super typhoon status (sustained winds at least 150 mph) about the middle of next week.

Twin Typhoons Outlook

Steered by high pressure aloft just south of mainland Japan, this system may eventually pose a threat as a strong typhoon anywhere from the northern Philippines to Taiwan Japan's Ryukyu Islands, including Okinawa, late next week.
(FORECASTS: Taipei | Shanghai)
Parts of eastern China may be threatened early the next week.
But that's just the first system. What about its twin to the east, Invest 98W?
While it's much too far out in time to be certain, current indications suggest the eastern system, instead of following in the wake of the first system, may instead track more toward the northwest next week.
This may occur thanks to a weakening upper-level high to its north, shifting instead to its east.
This would be well northeast of Saipan and Guam, if it holds true.
However, this second system may eventually pose a threat to mainland Japan late next weekend or early in the following week, if the jet stream doesn't curve it into the open waters of the north Pacific Ocean in time.
(FORECAST: Tokyo | Osaka)
Again, this is more than seven days out, and the forecast can and likely will change.
(MORE: Expert Analysis | Hurricane Central)
Interests in the western Pacific, including Guam, Saipan, Taiwan, Japan, the northern Philippines and eastern China should monitor closely the progress of each of these systems.
Including Halola migrating westward from the central Pacific basin, there have already been 14 named storms so far this year in the Northwest Pacific basin. Ten of those became typhoons -- equivalent to hurricanes -- and five of those (Maysak, Noul, Dolphin, Nangka and Soudelor) became "super typhoons", packing sustained winds estimated of at least 150 mph.
According to Colorado State University scientist, Dr. Phil Klotzbach, the Northwest Pacific basin had seen record levels of year-to-date tropical cyclone activity through early August, as measured by the accumulated cyclone energy or ACE index.

MORE: Typhoon Soudelor Photos