Typhoon Nuri's revenge: Massive superstorm will hit Alaskan islands
The fall is one of the stormiest times of year in the frigid and unforgiving waters of the Bering Sea, which separates Alaska from Russia. This November is proving to be no exception, as an exceptional weather event that could set global records for storm intensity is just a day away.
The storm ingredients include Typhoon Nuri, which is already beginning to shape shift into a larger, non-tropical (also known as an “extratropical”) storm. The typhoon is adding energy to the jet stream that is blowing at high altitudes across the North Pacific at speeds of nearly 200 miles per hour.
This jet stream energy, along with other factors, will help the larger version of Nuri explode into a massive superstorm.And the headline story:
In other words, we’re about to witness the sequel to Typhoon Nuri, called Nuri’s revenge.In other words, we’re about to witness the sequel to Typhoon Nuri, called Nuri’s revenge.
The storm is likely to blast the western Aleutian Island chain, including Attu, Shemya and Agattu islands with hurricane force winds and towering 50-foot waves.
The islands, which are located about 1,500 miles west of Anchorage, Alaska, aren't heavily populated, but there are expensive military assets on Shemya. The island has a two-mile long runway the military uses for refueling purposes, and commercial aircraft flying between North America and Asia use it as an alternate airport in the event of an in-flight emergency.
Also, the U.S. maintains a powerful phased array radar system on the island to detect missile launches from Asia....MORE
Typhoon Nuri, which was one of the two strongest storms on Earth so far this year, is going to help bring another shot of cold, Arctic air to the Midwest and East Coast later this week. That a typhoon near Japan could have a ripple effect on the weather in Detroit and New York just a few days later may be difficult to fathom, but it illustrates the myriad ways in which the world is an interconnected place.Related and more recent:
Super Typhoon Nuri maxed out in intensity at about a 180 mile per hour storm on Monday, and is now weakening and recurving to the northeast, heading out to sea east of Japan. According to multiple computer models, it may be destined to transform itself into a monster storm near Alaska — possibly one of the strongest that the western part of the state has ever seen — by this weekend.
In New York, Nuri's effects will likely be a round of heavy rain and mild air on Wednesday night and Thursday as a trough of low pressure sharpens near the East Coast. Parts of the Midwest, though, may see some snow out of this storm. By Saturday, New York's temperatures will be in the mid-to-upper 40s, with colder air sliding all the way to the South.
Making matters worse, the typhoon may serve to reinforce a long-running weather pattern that has favored warm and dry conditions in the West, where California is having its warmest year on record amid a massive drought.
Heather M. Archambault, a scientist at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, is an expert on the complex atmospheric feedbacks between recurving typhoons like Nuri, and the jet stream that runs from above the North Pacific toward North America. These feedbacks have only been identified in the past few years, having existed as hunches in the minds of forecasters before that.
Archambault, who currently is based at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Maryland, wrote her 2011 doctoral dissertation on the topic while at the State University of New York at Albany. She told Mashable in an interview that Typhoon Nuri (as of Tuesday morning it's no longer a super typhoon) is a classic case in which a recurving storm in the Northwest Pacific energizes the jet stream and results in a faster and wavier upper air flow, and hence stormier conditions, thousands of miles downstream. Recurving refers to a directional change in the path of the storm, in this case from an original bearing of west/northwest, to its current past of northeast....MORE
Meteorological 'bomb' is about to go off in the Bering Strait
