(July 10): Taiwan halted trading on its stock exchange and closed schools on Friday as Typhoon Bavi approached the island, with the storm’s gigantic size expected to dump heavy rain over a vast area as it tracks towards China.
Bavi is currently 713km (443 miles) south of Japan’s Okinawa island and moving steadily northwest towards China’s east coast, according to the US Joint Typhoon Warning Center. The system is packing top sustained winds of 157km per hour, equivalent to a Category 2 hurricane.
On its forecast track, the storm isn’t expected to cross Taiwan’s coast, but the island will be hit by torrential rain that could lead to extensive flooding. Offices have been closed on Friday, and Taiwanese carriers including Eva Air Corp, China Airlines Ltd and Starlux Airlines Co have cancelled flights throughout Saturday, according to officials from Taipei Taoyuan, the island’s biggest airport.
“Taipei is less likely to take direct eyewall hit or have the centre pass overhead, but this is still not a ‘miss’,” said James Caron, director of meteorological operations for North America and Asia at Atmospheric G2. “Bavi’s wind field is large enough that northern Taiwan can still see a period of very rough weather even with the centre staying offshore, and even a modest track shift could significantly increase wind impacts.”
After passing east of Taiwan, Bavi is expected to cross the Fujian coast on Saturday night, with top sustained winds of up to 173km per hour, according to the China Meteorological Administration (CMA). The typhoon, along with the moist southwest monsoon, is forecast to bring heavy rainfall to large swathes of China, which has already been soaked by recent storms.
Zhejiang and Fujian provinces could get as much as 600 millimetres (23.6 inches) of rain through Sunday, and some areas in Beijing and Hebei could see up to 350mm over the same period, the CMA said.
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“Remnants and the moisture plume could bring significant inland and northward rains even after the damaging winds fade,” said Caron. “That makes flooding possible well north and inland of the eventual landfall point.”
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