[dirtboy]

This typhoon is a monster, and incredibly has formed at 5-6 degrees north. It is currently listed as a 145 mph cat 4 but satellite presentation makes it look like a Cat 5. And it is heading right for Palau, which has 21,000 people in poorly-constructed buildings - and they all believe the typhoon will veer north. This could kill 10,000 people.

[dirtboy]

[stanne]

It’s kinda like our own Typhoon B.

[skeeter]

Not much good happens on Palau.

What in the world are 21000 people doing in that miserable place? Mining?

[dirtboy]

Soon-to-be super typhoon Bopha. Palau is right in the bulls-eye, on the north side of the eyewall.

[FlingWingFlyer]

FEMA is going to catch hell after this one hits. Dubya too!

[Theoria]

‘We’ will pay for their clean up. Man I hope those Uyghurs we gave’em can swim.

[BlueStateRightist]

Guess what the MSM will blame for this?

[GeronL]

The MSM is going to talk up every big storm as global worming aren’t they?

[Hot Tabasco]

OTV????? How come nobody’s heard of it?

[Tau Food]

Whoa.

[OldNewYork]

Prayers for Palau.

[Citizen Tom Paine]

As I recall, the Corolois Forces decreases as one approaches the Equator for horizontal velocities, but still remains for vertical velocities. Therefore, I don’t think Coriolis Force has anything to do with what is happening.IMHO

[John Valentine]

Yet, what makes Typhoon Bopha a “typhoon in a million” is that it has developed five-degrees from the equator, an area which is covered by the “Coriolis force.”

This statement is laughable for its ignorance. The Coriolis force is the force that tends to curve flows into a vortex, and is also the force that tends to force storms into a more north and easterly direction as they move north (in the Northern Hemisphere, of course). The Coriolis force is felt more strongly as one moves away from the equator either north or south until it diminishes again in the polar regions, and is essentially zero precisely at the equator, and weak either side of it, which is the reason cyclonic storms do not generally develop in the 10 degree band circling the Earth at its mid-section. It is the reason why there are many very tall palms where I live (about 8 degrees south) and not so many left on Guam (about 13 degrees north).

It would be inaccurate to say that the area 5 degrees north and south of the equator is NOT subject to the Coriolis force; it is, of course, as is everywhere else on Earth in principle.

The problem with the author's statement is that he leaves the absurdly inaccurate impression that the earth outside the equatorial band is NOT "covered" by the Coriolis force. Not only is it, but the Coriolis force is many times stronger there, which is the very reason for the greater incidence of cyclonic storms OUTSIDE the equatorial band.

[who knows what evil?]

Everybody...there is at least one Freeper and other Americans in the path of this storm...time to hit our knees in prayer.

[BillyBonebrake]

http://www.prh.noaa.gov/data/GUM/HLSPQ1

[Katiana Kalashnikova]

Palau is the largest island in the in the Palau Island chain. Also in the chain is the Island of Peleliu. Marines on this site will know where I'm going with this. In 1944 US Marines fought a horrific battle there against the Japanese and had huge losses of killed and wounded.

Read more here..

http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/peleliu/bloody.aspx

[Teacher317]

There have been 1 million typhoons since the last one like this one? Wouldn't that go back several thousand years in meteorological history? What did meteorologists use as instrumentation in the 4th Century to track Pacific typhoons?

If I've told you once, I've told you 757 billion times, hyperbole is a trillion times worse than murder!!

[Fiji Hill]

Palau is also one of a handful of countries that maintain diplomatic relations with the Republic of China on Taiwan.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Prayers for these folks. Too bad they couldn’t have been evacuated.

[XHogPilot]

ping