Tuesday 4 August 2015

Super Typhoon Soudelor

Super Typhoon Soudelor is barrelling towards Taiwan, Japan and China and is the most powerful storm of the year with wind gusts up to 220mph.
Widespread damage is expected in East Asia over the coming days as the Typhoon tops the category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale which measures storms with winds over 156mph.
According to the boffins at the National Hurricane Centre, there is no upper limit to wind strength but
physics dictates that based on atmospheric and ocean conditions, the top wind speed possible is 190mph with gusts reaching 231mph.
That puts Typhoon Souldelor almost at the maximum wind speed possible today but as the earth continues to warm resulting in warmer seas which fuel the size and strength of hurricanes, the potential for even more damaging wind speeds increases, 5% for every 1 degree Celsius increase in ocean temperatures.
Just as Australia had to introduce a new temperature scale recently as the heat climbed off the scale, meteorologists will need to introduce a Category 6 as the devastating effects of climate change continue to ramp up.

1 comment:

Liber - Latin for "The Free One" said...
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