Tropical Storm Tembin (Igme) Update #19

Tembin has weakened to a Tropical Storm as it moves east of Taiwan. The system was last located approximately 150km east southeast of Taipei. Maximum sustained winds are now down to 110kph with gusts of up to 140kph. Tembin is currently moving northeastward at 30kph.

As of 11am this morning, PAGASA has issued Public Storm Warning Signal #1 for Batanes Group of Islands. Meanwhile, the Central Weather Bureau of Taiwan has issued Typhoon Warning for Hualien and Yilan Counties as well as in New Taipei City.

Radar from CWB

Latest radar image from Taiwan shows the bulk of rains moving offshore away from Taiwan. However, residual rains are still impacting some parts of the country and extends east into Miyakojima Islands of Japan. Some stations in Taiwan have reported 200 to 300mm of rain in the past 2 days due to Tembin. As the system moves northward expect conditions to start improving beginning tomorrow. For the latest radar images, warnings, and forecasts from Taiwan, please click HERE

IR Image from NRLMRY

Tembin brushed the southern tip of Taiwan very early this morning as a Typhoon (it technically didn't make landfall). Some stations in and around Hengchun reported seeing sustained winds of 120kph. Even a station in Lanyu Island reported seeing sustained winds of 140kph along with occasional gusts of up to 200kph! Right now, wind reports from northeastern Taiwan along with Miyakojima Islands range from 60 to 80kph so this system has really weakened in the past 12 hours. Latest satellite image above shows that there still some pretty good convection in and around the center, though, and will probably maintain that strong Tropical Storm intensity for another two days.

Forecast Track (NOT OFFICIAL!)

For the next 2 to 3 days, Tembin should continue moving generally northward, passing east of Shanghai by Thursday morning. We have shifted our forecast track well to the east by the latter part of this week and we now expect Tembin to head towards the Korean Peninsula instead of the Shandong Peninsula. We are now forecasting a landfall in North Korea by Friday morning and by this time, Tembin should be a weak Tropical Storm. It will start losing tropical characteristics later on Friday and could transition to an extra-tropical system by Saturday as it moves into China.

We'll have another update tomorrow.
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Issued (0700 UTC) 300pm PhT 082812