Tropical Depression Kiko
Tropical Depression Kiko is forecast to upgrade to a Tropical Storm today as it continues to slowly organize in the South China Sea. This storm has already been blamed for two deaths in the southern Philippines after it moved over Mindanao and Visayas on Saturday and Sunday as a Low Pressure area. Despite being a weaker system it still dropped enough rain to producing flash flooding and also a landslide that caused the two deaths and forced over 300 families to evacuate.
Today Kiko continues a North Westerly track towards Hainan and Eastern Vietnam. If this track looks very familiar it is because its almost identical to Jebi. There are a few distinct differences though. Jebi was a deep monsoonal type depression that lacked a distinct center of center of circulation until just prior to landfall in Hainan. Kiko on the other hand does have a organized area of convection within the center of circulation. It also does have distinct inflow to the east and west of the system causing heavy rain showers across southern Vietnam and even much of Luzon on Tuesday. The wind field on Kiko is much smaller than Jebi as well due to its tighter center. This means a harder impact near the center line when this does make landfall near Southern Hainan and then Hanoi Vietnam. Much of the East coast of Vietnam though will feel wide spread thunderstorms and rain showers starting Tuesday night through the day on Wednesday. Landslides and flooding will also be a major threat for the country. JTWC has also started warning on this system. Click here for their full update.
By Thursday Kiko (Mangkhut) will make quickly weaken out as it moves over the mountains of Northern Vietnam. Another side effect of this storm system will be its enhancement of the South West Monsoon over the Indo-China Peninsula. A area that has been soaked with heavy rains this past month and more is very well possible as this storm comes ashore.
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Another area in the Tropics near Guam is also getting our attention today. This one still remains very disorganized and to be honest if it was not for global models we would not be mentioning it. But we have had numerous runs from the GFS Global that a Storm will be developing over the weekend and possibly impacting northern Vietnam or Southern Taiwan. If a storm was to develop in this area a Typhoon would be very likely given all the ingredients available in the area for a Tropical System to gain strength. (Warm SSTs, Low Vertical Wind Shear. Ridge Aloft to provide exhaust) . A few other models develop this storm but in different ways. ECMWF keeps it weaker and very broad. NAVGEM develops it to the same intensity with a vastly different track pulling north along the Eastern periphery of the pacific high. We will continue to monitor this area closely and of course ones it does become anything we will post live feeds on to our Facebook.
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GFS Outlook for Monday
In Japan today heavy rain warnings have also been place in numerous prefectures following the deluge the country saw on Tuesday. In Fukushima Prefecture 30 homes were inundated due to the heavy rains and now JMA still warns of yet more storms with the risk of flooding and landslides on Tuesday. The cause is a upper level trough still dominates the country today creating unstable conditions in the atmosphere while at the surface warm day time heating will be the catalyst for yet more storms to develop. Even Tokyo will see the risk of a strong thunderstorms or two develop during the evening hours. The good news is by Wednesday conditions will vastly improve as the trough starts to weaken out over Japan.
JMA MAP
Lastly another big topic today is the continued heat in Eastern China and the Southern Japanese islands. The same high pressure keeping tropical systems to the south has also been dominating this region keeping the temperatures warm (in to the 40s in some areas) and the air dry. At this time it looks like we haft to wait until the end of August to really start to see this high fall apart.
Water Bending?