Typhoon Saola Kills 23 in Philippines.

22:15 Unknown

NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Typhoon Saola on July  30 at 1517 UTC and the AIRS instrument captured an image of the storm. It showed that, strong, high, cold tops of the thunderstorms(purple) extended from the centre of circulation of some 300 miles from Taiwan southwest over the Philippines. (Photo credit: NASA JPL, Ed Olsen).

Heavy rains from the outer bands of Typhoon Saola, which hovered near the Philippines beginning last week, have left 23 people dead and another five injured, an official with the country's National Disaster Coordinating Center said Thursday.

 Saola looks like a monster tropical cyclone in infrared imagery from NASA's Aqua satellite today, July 30. Although Saola's center is over 300 nautical miles (368 miles/592 km) south-southeast of Taiwan, it stretches over the north and central Philippines and has triggered a number of warnings throughout the country.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument on NASA's Terra satellite captured an image of Typhoon Saola approaching Taiwan on July 30 at 0215 UTC (July 29 at 10:15 p.m. EDT). The image showed a ragged eye in the storm's center and the huge extent of the storm's clouds, stretching southwest over the Philippines.

NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Typhoon Saola a couple of hours after the Terra satellite. On July 30 at 0517 UTC (1:17 a.m. EDT) and the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument onboard the Aqua satellite captured an infrared image of the storm. It showed that strong, high, cold cloud tops of thunderstorms extended from the center of circulation some 300 miles from Taiwan southwest over the Philippines. The eye of the storm appeared much clearer on the AIRS infrared imagery than on the visible MODIS imagery.

On July 30, the following warnings were posted in the Philippines: Public storm warning signal #1 is in effect for the following provinces of Luzon: Apayao, Isabela, and Kalinga. Public storm warning signal #2 is in effect for the Luzon province of Cagayan and the Babuyan and Calayan groups of islands. Public storm warning signal #3 is in effect for the Batanes group of islands.

Forecasters at the Joint Typhoon Warning Center expect Saola to continue on a northwesterly track taking the center just north of Taipei, Taiwan on Wednesday, August 2. That means strong winds, heavy rainfall, and very rough coastal conditions for Taiwan.

On July 30 at 1500 UTC (11 a.m. EDT) Saola had maximum sustained winds near 65 knots (75 mph/120.4 kmh). It was centered 320 nautical miles (368 miles/592.6 km) south-southeast of Taipei, Taiwan near 20.6 North and 124.6 East. Saola is moving slowly to the northwest at 5 knots (5.7 mph/9.2 kmh), meaning more rainfall for the Philippines and more potential for flooding.

The Joint Typhoon Warning Center expects Saola to continue intensifying over the next couple of days and will make landfall in mainland China sometime on Thursday, August 3.

The floods have left over 250,000 homeless and some missing.

Forty-four evacuation centers were opened as Manila and the cities of Valenzuela and Malabon north of the capital along Manila Bay remained flooded, as reported by the Director of the country's National Disaster Coordinating Center, Benito Ramos .
In all, Saola dropped as much as half a meter (1.5 feet) of rain over the Philippines, said CNNI Meteorologist Taylor Ward.
Rains over the Philippines were only intermittent by Thursday at about 4 a.m., when the typhoon packing winds of 157 kph (98 mph) was making landfall in northeast Taiwan, said Ward.
Taipingshan, a mountainous in northern Taiwan, got more than 1.7 meters (5.6 feet) of rain. "The mountains really help enhance the rainfall," Ward said. "They basically force the air upwards, and that squeezes out the possible precipitation."
He described Saola as the equivalent of a Category 2 hurricane in the Atlantic when it made landfall in Taiwan. It was expected to continue at similar strength into China, striking 300 to 400 miles south of Shanghai at about 10 p.m. Thursday (10 a.m. ET).
The U.S. government's National Hurricane Center describes a Category 2 storm as one with sustained winds of 154-177 kph (96 - 110 mph) that "will cause extensive damage."
Another typhoon, Typhoon Damrey was expected to strike about 150 miles north of Shanghai, Ward said.
Damrey was expected to be slightly weaker, the equivalent of a Category 1 hurricane in the Atlantic, he said. The hurricane center describes those as packing sustained winds of 119-153 kph (74-95 mph) that "will produce some damage."

Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center.