Typhoon Kalmaegi Drifting Towards Taiwan and Threatens Eastern China

UPDATE #2:     Typhoon Kalmaegi has continued to strengthen and is heading towards to the north of Taiwan with winds gusting up to 120 miles per hour.

Kalmaegi is currently about 150 nautical miles southeast of Taipei and is moving north northwest at 13 miles per hour. Taiwan's Central Weather Bureau has issued land and sea warnings as the storm moves closer to shore. Kalmaegi means sea gull in Korean.

JMA forecast Kalmaegi to continue to move northwards and it could impact the east coast of China from tomorrow afternoon onwards. There is still some uncertainty into what affect the storm will have on China depending on whether it makes landfall on Taiwan or not. This is the 7th storm of the 2008 Pacific typhoon season. Last month typhoon Fengshen tore through the central Philippines before making a direct hit on Hong Kong as a tropical storm.

Every year typhoons regularly strike the nations straddling the northwest Pacific Ocean.

This is a developing situation and at present it is unclear as to the potential impact this storm may have on the Philippines, Taiwan and China. I will provide updates as often as possible.

For more information please consult the following websites.

http://www.jma.go.jp/en/typh/ - JMA typhoon forecast page

www.typhoon2000.ph - Philippines typhoon monitoring website

www.cwb.gov.tw - Taiwan Central Weather Bureau

www.typhoonfury.com - Website with photos and videos of current and previous high impact storms.