Tropical Storm Sanvu Update #12

Sanvu has now weakened to a tropical storm as it moves away from the Ogasawara Islands. The storm was last located approximately 200km east of Chichi-Jima and is currently moving northeastward at 15kph. Maximum sustained winds are down to 110kph gusting to 140kph.

IR Image from NRLMRY

The storm continues to weaken as it moves into unfavorable regions. The eye feature is now gone and the overall appearance has degraded. Nevertheless, microwave images (not shown) still depict deep convection particularly on the eastern side of the storm. Satellite data also show winds are still around 40 to 65kph around the center.

Interestingly, no rains were reported in Chichi-Jima and only 5mm were recorded in Hahajima (island just south of Chichi-Jima). It could be because of the small cloud-shield exhibited by Sanvu.

TS Sanvu will continue to move to the northeast and should eventually become an extra-tropical storm by as early as tomorrow. It will transition into a gale-force storm as it moves into the North Pacific.

More updates later this afternoon.
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Issued (22 UTC) 6am PhT 052712