To use this site, please disable the ad blocking feature and reload the page.
This website uses cookies to collect information about your visit for purposes such as showing you personalized ads and content, and analyzing our website traffic. By clicking “Accept all,” you will allow the use of these cookies.
Users accessing this site from EEA countries and UK are unable to view this site without your consent. We apologize for any inconvenience caused.
Four typhoons including the current Typhoon Ampil — also known as Typhoon No. 7 — formed one after another over the sea south of Japan between Aug. 8 and Tuesday.
According to the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), the presence of a low-pressure atmospheric vortex — called a monsoon gyre — has increased the likelihood that typhoons will form.
A high-pressure system in the Pacific is currently far to the east over the sea south of Japan, and a nearby low-pressure system is expanding, bringing with it anticlockwise wind circulation, which can easily create updrafts. Accordingly, clusters of cumulonimbus clouds, the precursors of typhoons, are forming one after another.
Additionally, sea surface temperatures in the area this year are about 2 C higher than normal, a situation that is adding a large amount of water vapor to the air. This is another condition that is ripe for typhoons.
Nagoya University Prof. Kazuhisa Tsuboki, who studies typhoons, spoke about the cause of this consecutive development of cumulonimbus clouds: “There have been few typhoons so far this year, and the sea had not been stirred up until recently.”
Typhoon Ampil moved northward along the edge of the high-pressure system in the Pacific. JMA said that the typhoon-prone conditions are not expected to go away any time soon and the agency would keep monitoring the development of subsequent typhoons.
