Chanthu briefly strengthened to a typhoon on July 22, 2010, as it approached the coast of southern China. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this natural-color image the same day. The storm center—marked by a discernible eye—is just east of Leizhou Peninsula. Clouds extend hundreds of kilometers inland over mainland China, and clouds almost completely cover the island of Hainan.
On July 22, 2010, the U.S. Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) reported that Chanthu had winds of 55 knots (100 kilometers per hour) with gusts up to 70 knots (130 kilometers per hour). The storm was roughly 45 nautical miles (85 kilometers) northwest of Zhanjiang. Interaction with land had caused the system to weaken, and it was expected to dissipate over northern Vietnam. Unisys Weather reported that Chanthu indeed weakened to a tropical depression on July 23.
Chanthu arrived on the heels of severe flooding in southern China, bringing even more rain to an already soaked region. Bloomberg reported that flooding in China in 2010 was the worst in over a decade, and more than 700 people had died.
NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Michon Scott.
