Super Typhoon Dolphin Becomes Earth's 5th Category 5 Storm of 2015

[phantom power]

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2992

Super Typhoon Dolphin intensified into a Category 5 storm with 160 mph winds and a central pressure of 925 mb at 2 pm EDT Saturday May 16, becoming Earth's fifth Category 5 storm of the year. Dolphin hung on to Category 5 strength for twelve hours before increasing wind shear helped knock the storm down to a Category 4 storm with 150 mph winds by Sunday morning. The eye of Dolphin passed through the channel between the islands of Guam and Rota Friday morning when the storm was at Category 2 strength with sustained winds of 110 mph. Guam experienced the weaker southern eyewall, and Rota saw the stronger northern eyewall. Andersen Air Force Base on Guam experienced sustained winds as high as 84 mph at 7:55 pm local time Friday, with a peak gust of 106 mph. Rainfall amounts tallied 9.30" in a 12-hour period. Dolphin knocked out power and damaged some homes, but the islands escaped serious destruction; Guam and Rota were very lucky that Dolphin waited a day to put on its intensification into a Category 5 storm. Satellite loops show a very impressive, well-organized system with a large ring of intense eyewall thunderstorms with very cold clouds tops, and prominent 28-mile diameter eye. A strong trough of low pressure has recurved the storm to the north, and Dolphin may pass close enough to Iwo Jima on Tuesday to bring that island typhoon conditions.

May 16 is exceptionally early to be getting our third Category 5 storm of the year in the Northwest Pacific. The global record for Category 5 storms is held by the El Niño year of 1997, which had twelve Category 5 storms--ten of them in the Northwest Pacific. The third Cat 5 of 1997 in the Northwest Pacific occurred on July 22, so we are more than two months ahead of that year's record pace. Dolphin is also the earliest-appearing 7th named storm of the Northwest Pacific's typhoon season; the previous record was on May 19, 1971. Super Typhoon Dolphin is already Earth's fifth Category Five storm this year, which is an unusually large number of these high-end tropical cyclones for so early in the year. Earth averaged just 4.6 Category 5 storms per year between 1990 - 2014, so we've already exceeded our average for an entire year; 2015 already has the 6th most Category 5 storms for any year in the past 26 years (reliable satellite records of Southern Hemisphere tropical cyclones extend back to 1990, so we only have about a 26-year period of decent records for global Category 5 tropical cyclones.) The majority of these storms occur during the July - November peak of the Northern Hemisphere's tropical cyclone season, with 59% of all Cat 5s occurring in the Northwest Pacific, so it is likely we will see several more Cat 5s this year. The early and violent start to 2015 typhoon season is due, in part, to exceptionally warm ocean temperatures in the typhoon breeding region between 5 - 10°N near the Date Line. These temperatures have been over 2°C (3.6°F) above average in recent months, due to a strengthening El Niño event.

[tblue37]

1. KnR. nt

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. We were warned there would be more frequent, more severe storms. n/t