Typhoon Chebi less destructive than feared

Typhoon Chebi slammed into the main island of Luzon in the Philippines last night at 6pm EST as a Category 3 storm with top winds of 120 mph. There are no reports of deaths yet, and damage appears to be much less than occurred for Super Typhoon Cimaron, which made landfall October 29 as a Category 5 storm with maximum sustained winds of 160-180 mph. Cimaron killed at least 15, left 2500 homeless, and destroyed about 8% of the island's rice and corn crop. However, Chebi was a much weaker typhoon, and dumped far less rain on the Philippines since it moved across the islands relatively quickly. Rainfall estimates by NOAA (Figure 1) show maximum rain amounts from Chebi were in the 4-7 inch range, which should not cause the kind of widespread flash flooding and landslides that are the primary hazard of typhoons in the Philippines. Cimaron dumped about 50% more rain on the Philippines than Chebi did.


Figure 1. Estimated rainfall for Typhoon Chebi. Image credit: NOAA


Figure 2. Typhoon Chebi shortly after landfall. Image credit: NRL Navy Reasearch Lab.

My next blog will be Monday, when I plan to discuss a new hurricane-like storm found on Saturn.

Jeff Masters