El Niño is up to its old tricks, helping to enhance what has been a very active typhoon season in the west Pacific. Since May, tropical storm activity has been higher than average, with several of these reaching “super typhoon” status, and right now there are two huge storms lurking in this region.
Typhoon Goni has been giving the northern tip of the Philippines a pounding over the last few days but should turn away to the north over the weekend. Thankfully, Taiwan is not in its path and the worst conditions should remain 100 miles or so to the east. Although the storm should lose power as it moves north, Japan’s southern islands will have to be at high alert this week.
Another huge hurricane has developed nearly a thousand miles to the southeast of Japan. Super Typhoon Atsani intensified last week with wind speeds gusting at over 160mph. Mercifully, this storm is well out to sea, with no major population centres in its path and it is predicted to curve northeastwards into the north Pacific before petering out.
Having two such powerful typhoons in the same region of the Pacific at the same time is a very rare occurrence, the last time this happened was when typhoons Ivan and Joan developed in 1997. It is no surprise then that this was another year when El Niño developed powerfully through the summer and autumn months.
It has been a far slower hurricane season in the Atlantic, but Danny, the first named hurricane of the season was christened at 10pm on Thursday. Danny is relatively small and is unlikely to gain strength because of a lot of Saharan dust and very dry air on its northern flank coupled with stronger upper level winds in the area it is heading for. The storm is likely to continue towards the Leeward Islands and, assuming forecasts for a reduction in its intensity prove right, it will bring welcome rain to a region which has suffered under drought conditions for several months.