CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa — Traffic continues to build in the northwest Pacific’s “Typhoon Alley.”
The Joint Typhoon Warning Center issued the first warning for the ninth numbered storm of the tropical cyclone season at 6 p.m. Sunday — the third in less than two weeks. It quickly turned into a tropical storm and at midnight swirled 770 miles southeast of Okinawa and remained almost stationary with sustained 46-mph winds and 58-mph gusts.
Initial JTWC forecasts called for 9W to track slowly west toward Taiwan.
“Weather patterns in the western Pacific will take it that way,” said Capt. Jonathan Wilson, commanding officer of Kadena Air Base’s 18th Wing Weather Flight.
“But it’s moving so slowly. It’s too early to say where specifically it will end up,” Wilson said. “We’ll keep an eye on it.”
If 9W becomes a named storm, it would be dubbed Sepat — Malaysian for freshwater fish. The closest point of approach for Okinawa was forecast for 420 miles southwest of Kadena at 9 p.m. Friday, packing sustained 98-mph winds and 121-mph gusts at its center.
The new storm began developing as another tropical disturbance that ravaged Okinawa for two days subsided. By mid-afternoon Sunday, the rain halted.
From Friday to Sunday morning, wind gusts of up to 40 mph pounded the island. The 18th Wing Weather Flight recorded almost 14 inches of rain in less than 48 hours.
Air Force and Japanese Web site weather forecasts call for a 70 percent to 80 percent chance of rain and thunderstorms for Okinawa stretching into Wednesday morning.
The JTWC was also keeping an eye on a tropical disturbance brewing 450 miles east-northeast of Saipan, listed as a “poor area,” meaning there’s a slim chance of it developing into a tropical storm in the next 24 hours.
