A typhoon that emerged off the east coast of Taiwan last week is now tracking northward toward the Korean Peninsula.
With warm sea surface temperatures and favorable wind conditions over the Yellow Sea, forecasters expect Typhoon Bavi to intensify before grazing the South Korean island of Jeju and dropping between 100 and 300 millimeters (4 and 12 inches) of rain. It is expected to weaken somewhat before making landfall in North Korea with wind speeds as high as 140 kilometers (90 miles) per hour, the equivalent of a category 1 hurricane.
The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the NOAA-NASA Suomi NPP satellite acquired this natural-color image at 04:35 Universal Time (1:35 p.m. local time) on August 25, 2020. At 12:00 am on August 26, the storm was centered about 500 kilometers west-southwest of Sasebo, Japan. It was moving to the north-northwest and had maximum sustained winds of 175 kilometers (110 miles) per hour.
Typhoon Bavi is the eighth tropical storm of the 2020 Pacific typhoon season, which has been quiet so far. The Korean Peninsula typically sees one landfalling storm per year.
NASA Earth Observatory image by Joshua Stevens, using VIIRS data from NASA EOSDIS/LANCE and GIBS/Worldview and the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership. Story by Adam Voiland.
