Snowin the hills outside Los Angeles , move over . There ’s a novel freak atmospheric condition event in town .
Typhoon Wutip is currently gathering force just south of Guam , making it the first typhoon of 2019 and just the second one on record to spin up in this part of the Pacific in February , according to data keep by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration . The freak typhoon is just to the south of the island , but is making a sharp bit northward and could clip Guam this weekend .
As of late Friday night local time , Wutip was packing free burning winds of 120 miles per hour , make it the equivalent of a Category 3 hurricane pushing moving ridge acme up to 41 feet according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center . blast are crank up to 150 mph , and the storm is project to maintain this level of saturation into Saturday before weakening a little as it continues to wend its way toward the northwest .
While Wutip ’s stats are n’t as exceptional as some of the other monster typhoons that can roar across this part of the Pacific , its timing is surely eldritch . Only one other typhoon has ever been record this near to Guam in February , according to NOAA . That would be Typhoon Irma for my tropical Pacific stans , which skirted the island as a class 1 - level storm in 1953 . The island saw wind gusts up to 63 mph and 6 inches of rainaccording to historic composition . Whether Wutip outdoes that remains to be consider .
While a lot has exchange between 1953 and 2019 , there ’s one affair both years have in vulgar : A washy El Niño . This twelvemonth ’s El Niño — a mood pattern characterized by warm than normal waters in the easterly tropical Pacific — wasjust declare last week . In addition to warm waters , El Niño is also qualify by weaker trade wind that generally blow from east to west . Those winds are usually unattackable in the wintertime owe to the sharp temperature gradient between the pole and the equator , and that posture tend to inhibit typhoon from work in this region over the winter months .
But this yr ’s El Niño has help quell those trade winds , allow Wutip to spin up . sea temperature are also about 1 level Fahrenheit above normal for this meter of year according to NOAA , giving Wutip further fuel to quarter on . Hotter oceans are one of the clearest indicators of clime change .
All this puts Guam in a weird spot of having to prepare for possible typhoon impacts in what is fundamentally the off - season . It presently sits on the outer edge of the cone cell of probability for where the tempest could go after with the southwest bakshis of the island most at - endangerment . But even if Guam does n’t get a direct smash , the storm ’s winds and rains could still whip the island . Tropical tempest - force winds ( that is , winds in excessiveness of 39 mph ) current extend 184 miles to the northeast of the storm ’s core and hurricane - force-out winds extend 46 international mile outward . pass Wutip ’s northward turn and that the tempest is already less than 160 international mile from Guam ’s shores , it is all but certain the island will experience the storm ’s effects in some form .
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