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West Pacific Tropical Action 2012


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The heavy rains in Manila are the result of the intensification of the monsoon flow south of the storm. This is considered an indirect effect of the typhoon. Such monsoon surges are common for storms that pass NW-NE of Luzon and can cause some very serious flooding. Another category of monsoon surge is related to the westerly wind bursts associated with active MJO waves-they tend to be longer in duration than typhoon related ones which (usually) last 1-3 days. Although not related to storms, the horizontal cyclonic shear on the poleward side of the monsoon flow maximum can generate low level vorticity and the development of a tropical cyclone.

Steve

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Looks like Ngong Ping is at 1,500 feet on top of a mountain on an island SW of Hong Kong.

Which makes that wind reading essentially meaningless as an indicator of the cyclone's intensity at that time.

That having been said, it was a nice system-- the core and banding looked awesome on radar. Hong Kong dodged a bullet. It's a bit hard to imagine the core of a system like that passing right over the region.

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I don't envy anyone with this forecast in the West Pacific right now. The GFS is projecting 3 maybe even 4 areas of vorticity associated with budding tropical cyclones embedded in a large gyre circulation. No doubt Saola is the dominant area of vorticity but the gyre center will probably be located further north and east as the axis between the three areas of vorticity. The track of Saola and these other developing tropical cyclones will probably be influenced by the larger scale circulation.

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Those Euro seasonal maps that suggested Luzon might be really, really wet just might turn out to be right.

Maybe we'll see -80º cloud tops in our basin in August. Maybe.

Still imagery could be misleading where the center is, BTW, it isn't all that close to Luzon.

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Such vortices are common enough in the strong monsoon flow SW of a developing storm (especially one that develops in the monsoon trough) and are associated with the periods of really intense rain that occur during the surge. Sometimes they will ddevelop into a TD or TS and then merge with the larger system to the NE and on rare occasions might even phoon if they come out of the SCS into the Luzon Straits. Some really horrendous flooding can occur with these systems though at present only "normal" monsoonal flooding is occurring right now in Luzon and the northern Visayas. MCVs in the monsoon flow from the North American Monsoon have also been noted in AZ and can cause (for the desert) some really heavy rains (3-6 inches vs the 8-12 found in the RP)

Steve

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Saola might be close to typhoon status, but its certainly not got a well defined inner core yet. That might be more difficult than normal given the multiple vorticies that are rotating around the mean center (The one located over the Philippines and the one located just west of Taiwan). Damray will likely complicate matters further as well as another potential disturbance that is expected to form east of Saola.

20120729.2355.f18.91h.10W.SAOLA.55kts.982mb.20N.124.8E.96pc.jpg

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For good laughs, check out the latest 12Z GFS -- after the Fujiwhara interaction between Damrey and Soala, the remnants of the latter dive SW and bear down on Vietnam in about a week. The next system to develop out of the monsoonal trough stalls over the Ryukyu Islands before turning towards Japan, and yet another system to the east develops and stalls over the open Pacific around 25N latitude for about five days.

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I checked out the latest satellite shots. Wow-- that thing (Saola) has a big-azz center; reminds me of Ike when it was crossing the Gulf. It's going to have trouble really spinning up.

One of the problems might also be the cyclonic vorticity (black contours) that continues to spin off from Taiwan. Its really making it hard for Saola to tighten up when its battling the vorticity being generated through topographical features on the lee of the Taiwan terrain.

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