50 million in storms’ crosshairs
Two monsters on the move
A surge in storm activity in the northern hemisphere has spawned ‘‘monster’’ Hurricane Florence in the North Atlantic, super Typhoon Mangkhut in the north-west Pacific and a string of other dangerous tropical tempests.
Hurricane Florence put a corridor of more than 10 million people in the crosshairs yesterday as the monster storm closed in on the Carolinas, uncertainty over its projected path spreading worry across a widening swath of the Southeast.
Faced with new forecasts that showed a more southerly threat, Georgia’s governor joined his counterparts in Virginia and North and South Carolina in declaring a state of emergency, and some residents who had thought they were safely out of range boarded up their homes.
The National Hurricane Center’s best guess was that Florence would blow ashore as early as tomorrow around the North Carolina-South Carolina line, then push its rainy way westward with a potential for catastrophic inland flooding.
East of the Philippines, the most powerful typhoon of the season is closing in on the northern Philippines, where officials ordered precautionary evacuations and closures of schools and offices and urged farmers to quickly harvest their crops to reduce damage.
Forecasters said Typhoon Mangkhut, considered as the strongest this year, could hit northern Cagayan province on Saturday. It was located about
800km away in the Pacific with sustained winds of 265kmh and gusts of up to 325kmh. It could maintain the strength of a super typhoon when it hits land in the northeastern corner of Luzon Island.
With a massive rain band
900km wide, combined with seasonal monsoon rains, the storm could bring heavy to intense rains that could set off landslides and flash floods, state forecaster Meno Mendoza said.
Its current predicted track takes it over the northern Philippines, leaving it on course to cross the south China coast southeast of Hong Kong on Sunday. As many as 43 million people could be affected, according CNN, citing the Global Disaster Alert and Co-ordination System.
Along with those two, other major storms now active include Hurricane Helene, forecast to track in a north-easterly arc in the North Atlantic towards Europe, and tropical storm Isaac in the Caribbean.
In the Pacific, Hurricane Olivia has weakened to a tropical storm. Barijat – a separate storm was passing south of Hong Kong also on Wednesday – was one of several other tropical depression now active.’’
Jonathan Nott, a professor at Australia’s James Cook University’s College of Science & Engineering, said ‘‘it’s unusual for the last few years [to have so many tropical storms at once] but it’s not unheard of’’. Of the tempests, Florence and Mangkhut are the only ones looking ‘‘nasty’’ at this point, he said. – Fairfax/AP