Dozens of deaths, hundreds of injured, property damage to at least 10,000 houses - typhoon "Hagibis" has caused severe damage in Japan.
Hurricanes are not uncommon in the region, but "Hagibis" combined several unusual features that gave it its destructive power.
According to meteorologists, among other things, the place where the storm hit land was a deciding factor for its destructive power: typhoons initially reach the south of the state and weaken strongly until they are the center of the largest and most populated Get to the island of Japan. On Honshu is also the Japanese capital Tokyo.
However, "Hagibis" remained on the water longer than the usual storms and eventually landed on October 12, just 130 kilometers from Tokyo. Through his long stay over the sea, the typhoon was able to gather a lot of energy. The result was the heaviest rains that a typhoon has ever brought to Japan.
Blue turned brown
The NASA earth observation satellite "Aqua" photographed Honshu Island on October 13, after the last storm foothills had moved northeast. The picture shows the region in natural colors. Tokyo can be recognized as a vast gray area in the middle of the picture. Rivers and coastal waters, which usually appear in clear blue, look brown.
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Satellite image of the week: snapshots from spaceThe heavy rain had stirred up sediments in the watercourses. Riverside banks collapsed in dozens of places. The bodies of water carried earth and mud into several bays along the coast, where the dark river water mingled with the ocean waters. Even radioactive earth from Fukushima should have slid into a river, reported the "Tagesspiegel", citing public information.
But it was not only his route and the great masses of water that were particularly responsible for the storm. "What's unique about this typhoon is how quickly it turned into a super typhoon at the beginning of its life," said NASA storm expert Patrick Duran.
From the storm to the superstorm in a few days
"Hagibis" was formed in early October in the Philippines Sea, a side sea of the Pacific Ocean and developed within a few days to a storm of category 5. On October 8, the intensity of the typhoon grew particularly strong. The inner eye contracted significantly - according to Duran a typical property of cyclones found in the tropics.
"There is not enough data on typhoons to judge how often they are so fast becoming super storms," the NASA researcher said. However, it is clear that in "Hagibis" one of the fastest ever documented intensifications of a typhoon was observed.
NASA
"Hagibis" on October 11, 2019
The day after, however, the storm was slowed down a bit during its development. The eye wall, which consists of high-reaching cumulus clouds and surrounds the eye of the storm, was replaced by a new one. "The exchange has reduced the storm's top speeds, but then the winds have spread over a larger area," Duran said.
Gusts at 315 kilometers per hour
A picture, also taken by the earth observation satellite "Aqua", shows the storm on October 11th. At the time, "Hagibis" spanned an area with a diameter of 1,400 kilometers. By comparison, the island of Honshu is about 1300 kilometers long.
When the picture was taken, sustained winds reached a speed of 210 kilometers per hour. This corresponds to category 4 of the storm scale. Throughout the period of its existence, the storm at the top produced persistent 260-kilometer winds per hour. The maximum speed of individual gusts was 315 kilometers per hour.
Fortunately, until "Hagibis" landed, he weakened to category two. In conjunction with winds from the higher-lying jet stream, nevertheless strong wind was created. It came to floods and power outages. One of the hardest hit regions was the small town of Hakone. There fell 922.5 liters of rain per square meter in just 24 hours - the largest amount of rain, which has ever brought a typhoon to Japan.
Researchers now want to further evaluate the data they have collected on "Hagibis" and to investigate the exchange of the eye wall in more detail. "Understanding this process is important to better predict hurricane behavior," said Duran.
