Another week, and two more typhoons are raging across the Pacific while a potential hurricane is organizing for a run at Hawaii.
Three named storms span the Pacific from Hawaii to Japan and a fourth is starting to organize about 850 miles south of Midway Island.
The most immediate threat to life and property is Goni, which is about 397 miles south of Taipei with winds of nearly 110 miles per hour and waves 38 feet high, according to the U.S. Joint Typhoon Warning Center in Hawaii.
“The way it’s moving right now, it seems like it’s trying to brush up against every island it can,” said Dan Kottlowski, a meteorologist with AccuWeather in State College, Pa.
An El Niño in the equatorial Pacific has raised water temperatures across the basin, fueling a steady parade of hurricanes and typhoons from Asia to the Americas and south to Australia.
In March, Cyclone Pam struck the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu while more storms threatened Australia. As spring turned to summer in the Northern Hemisphere, the storm threat crossed the equator, Mexico, Hawaii, China and Japan, as well as many places in between, have been hit, threatened or drenched with heavy rain by near-misses.
Japan may be the next country to take a direct strike from Goni, which could go ashore near Nagasaki sometime Tuesday, Kottlowski said.
Farther to the east, Typhoon Atsani, with 115 mph winds, is forecast to veer away from a direct strike on Japan and possibly head into the Bering Sea, according to the typhoon warning center’s track forecast.
There is a chance it or its remnants will be threatening Alaska’s Aleutian Islands in about 10 days.
Meanwhile, south of Hawaii, Tropical Storm Kilo is forecast to become a hurricane on Monday while still far from the state, according to the Central Pacific Hurricane Center in Honolulu.
