Typhoon Jebi makes landfall in Japan

According the chart hosted by the Japanese National Institute of Informatics, Jebi reached category-5 typhoon between the 31 August 2018 00:00 and the 01 September 2018 15:00 with a surface pressure as low as 915HPa and 1-mn sustained winds up to 280km/h. In this event sheet, the typhoon track displayed has been provided by the US-run Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC).

In an article released by the Washington Post the 31 August 2018, Ian Livingston wrote: "Super Typhoon Jebi, churning across the western Pacific Ocean, is the strongest storm observed on the planet so far in 2018. Although it has leveled off from its earlier explosive intensification, when its sustained winds reached nearly 180 mph [290kph], Jebi is still an intense Category 5 storm, packing winds of a little over 170 mph (150 knots).

Over the very warm waters of the tropical Pacific Ocean, Jebi is right about where we might expect to see the strongest storm on Earth. Ryan Maue, a meteorologist with Weather.us and an expert on tropical systems, said there are typically several Category 5 storms in any year, and the most likely location for them is either in the western Pacific or the southwestern Pacific, to the east of Australia. Jebi is the fourth Category 5 globally this year, Maue said."

He added: "As Jebi heads north toward Japan, it will run into cooler water and more wind shear, which tend to weaken storms. However, the storm’s fast forward speed and interactions with the jet stream may help it maintain its strength longer than it otherwise would. The European model predicts a relatively intact tropical system just offshore Japan, so this is certainly a system to continue to watch. Japan has already dealt with a few tropical cyclones this year, including Typhoon Prapiroon, which brought historic flooding [shown in a previous Sentinel Vision story] to parts of the country this summer."

According to an article published by Al Jazeera the 04 September 2018: "At least nine people have been reported dead and more than 300 injured as Typhoon Jebi pummelled Japan. The reports on Tuesday came after the Japanese government issued evacuation advisories for more than a million people following the storm's landfall on Shikoku, the smallest main island. Jebi - whose name means "swallow" in Korean - raked across the western part of the largest main island, Honshu, near the city of Kobe, several hours later, heading rapidly north. Jebi is considered a category-3 typhoon, out of five, on the Saffir-Simpson scale. According to Kyodo News, it was the strongest typhoon to make landfall in Japan since 1993."

Mainichi Japan evoked an unusual accident cause by Typhoon Jebi: "A tanker smashed into the bridge linking Kansai International Airport with the mainland and left around 3000 people stranded on Tuesday as strong winds and high waves from a powerful typhoon blasted western Japan. The 2,591-ton Houn Maru, which had been anchored in the bay, was swept toward the approximately 3700-meter-long bridge around 1 p.m., damaging the sole gateway by land to the airport." No pollution has been mentionned regarding this accident.