“Supertyphoon Neoguri is ENORMOUS” says Alexander Gerst, ESA’s German astronaut currently serving aboard the International Space Station (ISS) as he observes the monster storm swirling below on our Home Planet.
“Watch Out Japan!” added Gerst while he and his crewmates working aboard the ISS send back breathtaking imagery of the gigantic super typhoon heading towards Japan.
Neoguri is currently lashing the Japanese island of Okinawa with powerful damaging winds of over 125 mph and heavy downpours of flooding rain.
The Joint Typhoon Warning Center or JTWC reports that Neoguri is creating large and dangerous swells with wave heights to 37 feet (11.2 meters).
CNN reports today, July 8, that over 600,000 people have been told to evacuate and over 100,000 already have no power. Gusts have reached 212 kph (132 mph),
The storm is so big it could not even be captured in a single image taken today using the astronauts fisheye lens on the ISS.
“Supertyphoon Neoguri did not even fit into our fisheye lens view. I have never seen anything like this,” reports Gerst today, July 8.
And the worst may be yet to come as Neoguri is forecast to make landfall on Kyushu, the southernmost island of the Japanese mainland and home to more than 13 million people after 0000 UTC on July 10 (8 p.m. EDT on July 9).
Super Typhoon Neoguri formed in the western Pacific Ocean south-southeast of Guam on July 3, 2014, according to NASA.
By July 5 it had maximum sustained winds near 110 knots (127 mph).
The NASA and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission or TRMM satellite passed over the typhoon on Monday, July 7. It was classified as a category four typhoon on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale with sustained winds estimates at 135 knots (155 mph), says NASA.
The eerie looking eye is 65 kilometers (40 miles) in diameter. See photo.
It has since decreased slightly in intensity to a category three typhoon.
According to the Japanese Meteorological Agency Neoguri is currently located at 28°55′ (N) and E125°50′ (E).
At 5:02 PM EDT today, July 8, NASA just reported that the ISS flew directly over Neoguri and may have been visible in the new live HDEV cameras residing on the stations truss.
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