April 30, 2024

Hurricane Fiona & Typhoon Nanmadol: Powerful Storms Hit Puerto Rico and Japan

In the Atlantic Ocean, Hurricane Fiona blasted Puerto Rico nearly 5 years to the day after Hurricane Maria ravaged the island. The natural-color satellite image above shows Hurricane Fiona on September 18 shortly prior to landfall. Fiona was the third Atlantic typhoon of the 2022 season.

Cyclone Fiona came ashore in southwestern Puerto Rico in the late afternoon. Cyclone Fiona later brought torrential rain and flooding on September 19 to the Dominican Republic.

Cyclone Fiona came ashore in southwestern Puerto Rico in the late afternoon. The cyclone dropped a massive 1 to 2 feet (300 to 600 millimeters) of rain in many areas.
By midday on September 19, roughly 90 percent of customers on the island were afflicted by an electrical power interruption. In addition, 25 percent of the island did not have access to running water, according to news reports.
Typhoon Fiona later brought torrential rain and flooding on September 19 to the Dominican Republic. Forecasters are anticipating the storm to head north and magnify into a significant cyclone, the first of the Atlantic season. The current forecast from the U.S. National Hurricane Center suggests the storm could pass near Bermuda.
Tropical storm Nanmadol. September 18, 2022.
While Fiona was arriving in Puerto Rico, Typhoon Nanmadol blew into southwestern Japan, also bringing flooding rains. Right before midday on September 18, the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite ( VIIRS) on the NOAA-20 satellite obtained the natural-color image of the storm revealed above.
Nanmadol made landfall near Kagoshima late on September 18 as a category-2 storm with 175-kilometer (110-mile) per hour sustained winds. Widespread rains amounts to reached 12 to 19 inches (300 to 500 millimeters), and a number of rivers and streams overflowed. At least 300,000 consumers lost electric power, and many rail and air traffic was halted.
Tropical storm Nanmadol photographed from the International Space Station. Credit: Bob Hines/ NASA
Astronaut Bob Hines tweeted remarkable photos of Nanmadol, keeping in mind: “Its unbelievable how something that appears so beautiful from space can be so terrible on Earth.”
The Western Pacific hurricane season stretches throughout the entire year, but the bulk of storms typically form between May and October. Far in 2022, 16 tropical storms or anxieties have actually formed in the basin, of which 7 have actually become tropical cyclones.
NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using MODIS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE and GIBS/Worldview and VIIRS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE, GIBS/Worldview, and the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS).

Hurricane Fiona. September 18, 2022.
Fiona and Nanmadol dropped numerous feet of rain on the islands on opposite sides of the world.
On September 18, 2022, powerful hurricanes made landfall on opposite sides of the world. In the Atlantic Ocean, Hurricane Fiona blasted Puerto Rico practically five years to the day after Hurricane Maria ravaged the island. In the Western Pacific, Typhoon Nanmadol drenched the Japanese island of Kyushu before blowing across many of the island nation.
The natural-color satellite image above shows Hurricane Fiona on September 18 soon prior to landfall. The image was obtained by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer ( MODIS) on NASAs Terra satellite. Fiona was the 3rd Atlantic cyclone of the 2022 season.