Typhoon Yutu will hit U.S. islands

The Earth’s strongest storm this year is about to strike U.S. territories in the western Pacific Ocean. A strengthening Super Typhoon Yutu, with sustained winds of 180 m.p.h. (290 km/h), is on a trek through the Northern Mariana Islands.

The storm is roaring across the islands of Saipan and Tinian, both U.S. territories, and will become among the most intense storms to impact U.S. soil.

The Joint Typhoon Warning Center now considers Yutu an incredibly strong Category 5 equivalent typhoon. Because reconnaissance planes do not fly in the western Pacific to directly measure conditions inside storms, the intensity of 180 m.p.h., or 155 knots, is based on estimates from satellites.

Meteorologist Ryan Maue of WeatherModels.com tweeted that the storm would be a “Category 6 if Atlantic scale was extrapolated.”

According to Phil Klotzbach of The Washington Post, Yutu is “tied with Mangkhut for the strongest storm of the 2018 season to date.” If it strengthens further, Yutu will rank among the all-time most intense storms ever recorded.

“This is an historically significant event,” tweeted Michael Lowry, a hurricane specialist with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

While the western Pacific is where the world’s most powerful tropical cyclones tend to form, Yutu’s strength is likely to be unprecedented in modern history for the Northern Mariana Islands.