Super Typhoon Wipha

Super Typhoon Wipha

At one time a powerful Category 4 storm, Typhoon Nari made landfall on the southern coast of the Korean peninsula as a Category 2 storm on September 16, 2007. Less than three days later, Category 3 strength Typhoon Wipha made landfall on the east coast of China. It, too, was once a powerful Category 4 storm. Together these storms brought a significant amount of rainfall to the region. As of September 20, Nari had caused at least 13 deaths in South Korea, while Typhoon Wipha caused at least 9 deaths in China, said news reports.

This image shows rainfall totals associated with the two storms from September 13 through September 20. The path of the storms is defined by two parallel swaths of rainfall of at least 100 millimeters (about 4 inches, yellow areas) extending northward from the western Pacific Ocean towards the Korean Peninsula. The swath on the right is associated with the passage of Nari, while that on the left is due to Wipha. The highest totals over South Korea are on the order of 150 to 250 mm (about 6 to 10 inches) and come from both Typhoon Nari and its interaction with a pre-existing frontal boundary. Likewise, the highest totals associated with the passage of Wipha, located over Korea Bay and the northern Yellow Sea (areas in red indicate rainfall totals around 200 mm, or about 8 inches), are from Wipha’s interaction with a frontal boundary.

These rainfall totals are from the near-real-time, Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis (MPA) at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. The Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis is based on measurements from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite, which came into service in November 1997 with the primary mission of measuring rainfall in the Tropics. TRMM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japanese space agency, JAXA.

Image produced by Hal Pierce (SSAI/NASA GSFC) and caption by Steve Lang (SSAI/NASA GSFC).