Typhoon Krathon's slow pace and direction of approach are taking meteorologists and storm chasers by surprise. We break down where the typhoon's headed and the forces making it such an unusual weather event for Taiwan.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Typhoon Graton is proving to be quite the interesting storm.
00:05It was expected to make landfall
00:06on the southern city of Kaohsiung on Wednesday morning,
00:10but as we can see, as of Wednesday evening,
00:12it's still hovering off the southwest coast of Taiwan,
00:16and that's because this storm
00:17has been moving incredibly slowly,
00:19sometimes as slow as seven kilometers per hour.
00:24Now, the storm is expected to make landfall
00:27either late on Wednesday
00:28or early Thursday morning in Taiwan's south.
00:32It's then going to move up Taiwan's west coast
00:35through cities like Tainan and Taichung,
00:38eventually reaching Taiwan's north by late on Friday.
00:43Now, this typhoon was downgraded
00:46from a super typhoon to a regular typhoon,
00:49but meteorologists are still warning
00:51that the slow pace of this storm
00:53could mean that rainfall hovers over areas
00:56of the country for longer than usual,
00:58increasing the risk of severe floods.
01:02Now, this storm is particularly interesting
01:05for several reasons.
01:06One of those is the direction
01:08at which it's approaching and striking Taiwan.
01:11It's coming in from the Pacific through the Bassy Strait
01:14and whipping around to strike Taiwan in the south,
01:18whereas most typhoons usually come in
01:21and strike Taiwan directly on the east coast.
01:26Now, another reason that this is particularly interesting
01:28is the slow pace at which it's moving,
01:30and that's because the storm is being pulled
01:32both southwards and northwards at the same time,
01:36with that northern pull being slightly stronger
01:40and pulling it up towards Taiwan's southwest coast.
01:44Another reason this storm is interesting
01:46is that it's expected to actually dissipate over Taiwan
01:51instead of moving on towards China, Korea, or Japan,
01:56as is typical.
01:57Now, this storm is expected to bring a lot of wind
02:00and a lot of rain, and given how unusual
02:03and unpredictable this storm is,
02:06people are being warned to take every precaution
02:09that they can to stay safe.