Clocking winds in excess of 185 mph, or roughly 160 knots, Super Typhoon Meranti is passing through the Japanese southwestern island of Okinawa as it continues on a track that would bring it close to the southern tip of Taiwan in the early morning hours of September 14.
According to NOAA, the U.S. Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) predicts maximum open-ocean waves of 48 feet and maximum sustained winds of 150 knots (173 miles per hour), with gusts up to 180 knots (207 mph). Because of its size, while Meranti won’t pass directly over Taiwan, the island will take the brunt of the right side of the storm, says NOAA.
The “right side of a storm” is one way of describing a storm’s motion. In the Northern Hemisphere, if a hurricane is moving to the west like Meranti is doing, the right side would be to the north of the storm, in this case, covering the island of Taiwan. Usually, the strongest winds in a hurricane are on the right side because the motion of the storm is contributing to the swirling winds.
Now keep in mind that the above illustration is for tropical cyclones in the Northern Hemisphere. For tropical cyclones in the Southern Hemisphere, these differences are reversed, and the strongest winds are on the left side of the storm. This is because the winds swirl clockwise south of the equator in tropical cyclones.
Officials in Tawan evacuated almost 1,800 tourists from offshore islands today and have closed some schools and offices in anticipation of the storms wrath. Although Meranti is expected to weaken when it makes landfall, the monster storm is still expected to produce torrential rains and damaging winds.
China Post newspaper reported that in many remote Taiwan villages, residents are really not equipped to deal with gale force winds. Xianglan Village in Taitung was battered by Typhoon Nepartak in July, and the village is still not yet fully reconstructed, reports the Standard-Times.
