Saturday, August 08, 2009

Typhoon generated waves


Tropical storms have a slow start in 2008. This one, Typhoon Morakot in eastern Pacific had just barely made it into typhoon category but still managed to bring excessive precipitations and plenty of damages to Taiwan. The above picture shows onshore waves from approaching Typhoon Morakot pound the northeast shoreline of Taiwan, Friday, Aug. 7, 2009. (AP / Wally Santana)

According to the Associated Press report in CTV:
TAIPEI, Taiwan -- A typhoon slammed into Taiwan overnight, leaving at least six people dead or missing and more than a dozen injured, officials and media reported Saturday.

Typhoon Morakot made landfall in the eastern Hualien county late Friday night, the Central Weather Bureau said.

The storm, packing winds of up to 119 kilometres per hour, was centred about 30 kilometres south of the capital, Taipei, as of 10:15 a.m. Saturday (0215 GMT) and was powering in a northwesterly direction at a speed of 11 kilometres per hour, the weather bureau said.

Xinhua also reports that some 34,000 vessels were told to take shelter in ports as the storm approached. That's certainly prudent and probably the reason why there were few damaging instance or freaque wave encounters during hurricane or typhoon. As it has been shown that both storm waves and freaque waves can happen during typhoon or hurricane.


Update 08/09/2009

Here's a picture by Reuters/Stringer

with this explanation:

A resident rides a motorcycle on a flooded road as typhoon Morakot approaches in Xiapu County of Ningde, Fujian province, August 9, 2009.

All the best to this motorcycle rider and a sincere hope that he gets home safe and sound!


Update 08/11/2009

Typhoon Morakot, a Catagory 2, just dissipated. But it left excessive damages and human miseries caused by flooding, land and mud slides in Taiwan and else where that'll take a long, long time to recover see e.g. this Yahoo News.

Here are some pictures showing a tourist hotel is falling down and other rescue efforts:


the aftermath is truly hard to cope. Let's all earnestly pray for the lost, the alive, and the rescue workers.

1 comment:

Joyful Catholics said...

Interesting post. I was searching for info on the tidal wave in Taiwan, and your blog was what I found first. I also visited your other blogs and liked what I've read. We're going to a Town Hall coffee/breakfast with our congressman, Lee Terry on Aug. 29. Hope to hold his feet to the fire, too. God bless.