Early Wind Data Shows Super Typhoon Nepartak Will Be an Epic Storm

Sean Breslin
Published: July 7,2016

There are powerful storms, and then there are off-the-charts storms. Super Typhoon Nepartak has already proven to be one of the latter, even before making landfall in Taiwan.
The image below shows surface wind speeds produced by the typhoon, as measured Thursday by a buoy off the coast of Taiwan. The strongest winds, measured in the top graph, were so strong that they extend beyond the chart's barriers.
"It's not often surface-based weather instruments remain intact to sample extreme wind speeds as we saw with the Taiwanese buoy," said weather.com meteorologist Jon Erdman. "This wind measurement was a particular stroke of luck, in that reconnaissance aircraft missions that would ordinarily help sample peak wind speeds and minimum surface pressure are not presently flown in the western Pacific."
(MORE: Taiwan Prepares for Nepartak | Track the Typhoon)

Well before landfall, the storm was responsible for offshore wind speeds as high as 153 mph, according to Michael Lowry, hurricane expert for The Weather Channel.
The strongest measured wind gust from a hurricane that hit the U.S. was produced by the "Long Island Express" in September 1938, when a 186-mph wind speed was recorded at the Blue Hill Observatory in Milton Massachusetts. That wind gust may have been aided by elevation, as the report was taken 635 feet above sea level.