The system meandering about a thousand miles off of the Philippines has formed into tropical depression this morning. TD09W is forecast to rapidly intensify as turns towards the Ryuku Islands, and on the JTWC track the eyewall is forecast to sweep across Okinawa as a middle grade Category Two storm in about four days. Here’s the damage swath:
Note that a small wobble can change this a lot. The storm is still spinning up, and the model spread is still wide, although biased a bit towards a more northerly track …
Should have a better handle on this tomorrow. Note that the storm should clear Japan and be into the Chinese coast before the Olympics starts, and as far as I know there aren’t any events in the potential damage swath unless the storm takes a hard right turn.
