24. SuperTyphoon NANMADOL (Yoyong) 
>> November 28-December 04, 2004
Nanmadol: contributed by Micronesia, is a famous Pohnpei ruin, sometimes known as the "Venice of the Pacific."
Storm Origins
Super Typhoon Nanmadol developed from a cluster of thunderstorms that was first mentioned in JTWC's STWO at 2200 UTC 27 November when it was located approximately 155 nm south-southwest of Pohnpei. Development potential was assessed as 'fair' and animated enhanced infrared satellite imagery revealed disorganized deep convection consolidating over a possible LLCC. An upper-level analysis revealed good poleward and equatorward diffluence and wind shear in the area was light. A TCFA was issued at 28/0300 UTC after a rapid increase in deep convection was noted over the LLCC and water vapor imagery showed an increasing radial outflow. This statement was followed by the first warning at 28/1800 UTC which centred the newly-formed Tropical Depression 30W some 690 nm east- southeast of Yap. The system was headed in a westerly direction through a low to moderate wind shear environment south of the subtropical ridge. Tropical Depression 31W quickly developed into Tropical Storm Nanmadol when both JTWC and JMA upgraded their respective MSW estimates to 35 kts at 29/0000 UTC.
Synoptic History
The Prognostic Reasoning Message issued at 0000 UTC 29 November was not encouraging to say the least. There was high confidence in the long- term forecasts that Nanmadol would make landfall over Luzon, Philippines, an area that had suffered disastrously from heavy rains and flooding from the recent spate of tropical cyclone activity. Nanmadol continued to strengthen and reached typhoon intensity at 29/1200 UTC after passing south of Satawal earlier in the day. At this time infrared and water vapor imagery indicated a very large and symmetric central dense overcast and strong radial outflow in all directions. Also, there were signs of a warm spot, a sign of eye formation. After its upgrade, the storm's track curved onto a west-northwesterly track which would be maintained for several more days to come. At 29/1500 UTC Typhoon Nanmadol was passing the island of Woleai and the intensity had climbed to 75 kts by 29/1800 UTC.
Intensification eased for awhile as Typhoon Nanmadol continued its brisk west-northwestward heading towards Yap en route to the Philippines. At 0000 UTC 30 November the storm was located approximately 180 nm east- southeast of Yap. Nanmadol passed just north of the island at 30/0800 UTC, bringing typhoon-force gusts and sustained tropical storm strength winds. Strengthening resumed and the MSW reached 105 kts at 01/0000 UTC. Nanmadol stuttered a bit after the intensity had risen to 125 kts at 01/1200 UTC, and even fell back a bit six hours later. However, the tropical cyclone reached its peak intensity of 130 kts at 02/0000 UTC, a super typhoon, centred 220 nm east of Manila, Philippines. Because of its rapid translational speed Super Typhoon Nanmadol soon arrived at the Luzon coastline and at 02/1200 UTC was poised to make landfall south of the of Casiguran. At this time, the system began to lose strength and was downgraded from super typhoon status.
Turning northwestward Typhoon Nanmadol took roughly six hours to cross the island of Luzon, and by 1800 UTC 2 December had reemerged back over water. It had weakened slightly to 110 kts at this time, and likely its rapid passage across the northern Philippines didn't allow time for the system to weaken significantly. However, this period marked the beginning of the end for the tropical cyclone. The northwesterly turn was to take Nanmadol into a weakness in the subtropical ridge before being dragged off by a major shortwave trough. In addition, upper-level conditions in the vicinity of Taiwan were becoming increasingly unfavourable. In response to this, Nanmadol weakened markedly during the 3rd as it gradually veered more towards the north. Cloud top temperatures rapidly warmed and cold dry air was being sucked into the storm's southwestern quadrant. In addition, the cloud pattern became increasingly asymmetrical, a sign that extratropical transition was beginning. At 03/1200 UTC the LLCC was exposed 130 nm to the south of the deep convection--the centre was then located approximately 210 nm southwest of Kaoshiung, Taiwan. The MSW had dropped to 65 kts by 03/1200 UTC, and six hours later, JTWC issued the final warning, lowering the intensity down to a 55-kt extratropical storm. JMA continued issuing bulletins, tracking Nanmadol east-northeastward across southern Taiwan before ceasing to write bulletins at 04/0600 UTC. (See Huang Chunliang's Report from China--Section E.) The remnants of Super Typhoon Nanmadol continued to rapidly move to the east-northeast and northeast and ultimately merged with another LOW, forming a powerful extratropical cyclone which brought strong winds and advected unseasonably warm temperatures to Japan.
At its peak intensity Super Typhoon Nanmadol was a large-sized typhoon. Typhoon-force winds extended as far as 65 nm in the southwest quadrant while gales lay up to 320 nm in the same quadrant. Strong winds extended outward a shorter distance in the northeastern quadrant with 64-kt winds up to 35 nm and gales as far as 190 nm.
All Asian agencies, except PAGASA, estimated peak intensities of 90 kts with JMA estimating a minimum CP of 935 mb. PAGASA estimated a peak MSW of 100 kts during the period Super Typhoon Nanmadol/Yoyong was tracking through their AOR.
Damages and Casualties
Because Typhoon Muifa, Tropical Depressions Merbok and Winnie, and Super Typhoon Nanmadol all occurred within a space of two weeks, the exact number of casualties and total cost of damages of each may be difficult to determine. However, the NDCC report indicated that Nanmadol caused 70 fatalities, and 157 injuries with 37 persons unaccounted for. This brings the total of tropical-system related deaths in the Philippines to 1,060. The report also indicated that Nanmadol destroyed 10,457 houses and damaged 57,435. Agriculture also suffered badly as a result of this typhoon with losses amounting to 2,036 million pesos.
Huang Chunliang Report from the Philippines
=== Rainfall Obs from Philippines === (All dates in December) Only daily amounts >= 100 mm listed: CATANDUANES RADAR (WMO98447 13.98N 124.32E) 127.2 mm [01/00-02/00Z] CATARMAN (WMO98546 12.50N 124.63E) 122.0 mm [01/00-02/00Z] DAET (WMO98440 14.13N 122.98E) 228.1 mm [02/00-03/00Z] TANAY (-------- 14.57N 121.37E) 145.6 mm [02/00-03/00Z] VIRAC (WMO98446 13.58N 124.23E) 115.2 mm [02/00-03/00Z] BAGUIO (WMO98328 16.42N 120.60E) 104.9 mm [02/00-03/00Z]
Huang Chunliang Report from China
=== Report on Typhoon 0428 (NANMADOL)/Moderate === === Typhoon 0427 (NANMADOL) from China === (All dates in December) 1. Landfall ----------- According to the CWB warnings, Weak Typhoon 0427 (Nanmadol) made land- fall in southeastern Taiwan near Fangliao, Pingtung County, around 03/2340 UTC with a MSW of 28 m/s and a CP of 980 hPa. The storm then entered the waters east of southern Taiwan from near Taimali, Taitung County, around 04/0130 UTC before transforming into an extratropical cyclone. As a result, Nanmadol made a name for itself as the first December tropical cyclone in the past 108 years to make landfall on the island (typhoon records began in the year 1897). 2. Rainfall Obs from Taiwan --------------------------- Daily Rainfall [02/16-03/16Z] (only Top 5 listed): Ranking Station ID City/County Rainfall (mm) --------------------------------------------------------------------- 01 CWB C1T83 Hualien County 907.0 02 CWB C0T82 Hualien County 728.0 03 CWB C1T94 Hualien County 632.0 04 CWB C1T95 Hualien County 628.0 05 CWB C1T98 Hualien County 494.5 Note: Puluowan (CWB C1T83) reported the highest storm total accumulation of 1090 mm during the 35-hr period ending at 04/0300 UTC. 3. Rainfall Obs from Fujian --------------------------- Nanmadol turned out to be an extremely rare winter tropical cyclone that affected my city. In fact, before Nanmadol, there has never been any tropical cyclone to affect Fujian in the month of December, according to the meteorological records of the province. Fuzhou's coastal county of Lianjiang recorded a 24-hr rainfall amount of 52.3 mm [03/00-04/00Z] (Top 1 in Fujian Province that day), while the urban area (WMO58847), where I live, reported an uninterrupted daily accumulation of 29.7 mm during the same span, the climatic average for the whole month of December being 28.8 mm. Both values were rare for the city at this time of year. 4. Rainfall Obs from Zhejiang ----------------------------- Only daily amount >= 100 mm listed: DACHEN DAO (WMO58666 28.45N 121.88E) 106.3 mm [03/00-04/00Z] SHIPU (WMO58569 29.20N 121.95E) 101.9 mm [03/00-04/00Z] YU-HUAN (WMO58667 28.13N 121.22E) 101.8 mm [03/00-04/00Z] 5. Damage and Casualties in Taiwan ---------------------------------- Nanmadol caused 2 deaths with another 2 persons missing in Taiwan. Power supply to 26,588 households was disrupted during the storm. The agricultural losses there were estimated to have been NT$ 670 million.
Huang Chunliang Report from China
=== Report on Extratropical Cyclone === === (December 4-5, 2004) === {Part I}. Introduction ====================== JMA regarded the cyclone as another extratropical system (rather than "ex-Nanmadol") which formed north-northeast of Nanmadol around 04/0000 UTC, then absorbing the latter by 04/1200 UTC. I believe, however, that it's acceptable to label the storm directly as "ex-Nanmadol", though I didn't remember if any of the other agencies had done so. {Part II}. Meteorological Obs from Tokyo District Meteorological Observatory ================================================= Note 1: All the obs in this part were reported within the precinct of Tokyo District Meteorological Observatory, including the prefectures of Niigata, Toyama, Ishikawa, Fukui, Ibaraki, Gumma, Tochigi, Saitama, Tokyo, Chiba, Kanagawa, Yamanashi, Nagano, Shizuoka, Gifu, Aichi and Mie. Note 2: "*" = record-breaking values for relevant stations. Note 3: "#" = record-breaking values of December for relevant stations. 1. Top-5 Storm Total [03/1500-05/1500Z] Obs ------------------------------------------- Ranking Prefecture Station Rainfall (mm) ---------------------------------------------------------- 01 Mie Owase 230 02 Mie Mihama 222 03 Shizuoka Amagisan 210 04 Shizuoka Umegashima 202 05 Shizuoka Ikawa 201 05 Shizuoka Honkawane 201 2. Top-5 Peak Sustained Wind (10-min avg) Obs --------------------------------------------- Ranking Station Peak wind (mps) ---------------------------------------------------------------- 01 Miyake-tsubota, Tokyo (JMA44228, Alt 20m) 30 [04/2030Z] 02 Chiba, Chiba (WMO47682, Alt 4m) #24.5 [04/2130Z] 03 Ojima, Tokyo (WMO47675, Alt 74m) #24.4 [04/2110Z] 04 Irouzaki, Shizuoka (WMO47666, Alt 55m) 24.3 [04/1950Z] 05 Haneda, Tokyo (JMA44166, Alt 6m) 24 [04/2140Z] 3. Peak Gust Obs (only those >= 40 m/s listed) ---------------------------------------------- Ranking Station Peak wind (mps) ---------------------------------------------------------------- 01 Ojima, Tokyo (WMO47675, Alt 74m) #48.3 [04/2032Z] 02 Chiba, Chiba (WMO47682, Alt 4m) #47.8 [04/2141Z] 03 Katsuura, Chiba (WMO47674, Alt 12m) #43.7 [04/2208Z] 04 Yokohama, Kanagawa (WMO47670, Alt 39m) #43.4 [04/2050Z] 05 Irouzaki, Shizuoka (WMO47666, Alt 55m) #41.6 [04/1942Z] 06 Omaezaki, Shizuoka (WMO47655, Alt 45m) #41.3 [04/1936Z] 07 Choshi, Chiba (WMO47648, Alt 20m) #41.0 [04/2151Z] 08 Hachijojima, Tokyo (WMO47678, Alt 79m) 40.3 [04/2217Z] 09 Tokyo, Tokyo (WMO47662, Alt 6m) *#40.2 [04/2120Z] 4. Top-5 SLP Obs ---------------- Ranking Station Min SLP (hPa) ---------------------------------------------------------------- 01 Mito, Ibaraki (WMO47629) 974.4 [04/2155Z] 02 Tokyo, Tokyo (WMO47662) 975.6 [04/2116Z] 03 Takayama, Gifu (WMO47617) 976.1 [04/1906Z] 04 Utsunomiya, Tochigi (WMO47615) 976.2 [04/2142Z] 05 Yokohama, Kanagawa (WMO47670) 976.9 [04/2056Z] {Part III}. The most significant obs available to me from other prefectures =============================================================== Tomogashima, Wakayama (JMA65036, 34.28N 135.00E, Alt 43m) reported a peak sustained wind (10-min avg) of 31 m/s [04/1630Z] during the storm, while Shishikui, Tokushima (JMA71316, 33.56N 134.31E, Alt 4m) recorded a storm total rainfall of 269 mm [03/2200--04/1700Z]. {Part IV} References ==================== http://www.tokyo-jma.go.jp/sub_index/bosai/disaster/ 20041206/20041206.pdf (Japanese version only) http://www.jma.go.jp (Japanese version)
Michael Padua Observations from the Philippines
Michael Padua in Naga City (13.6N/123.2E) sent me the following observations he made during the passage of Typhoon Nanmadol/Yoyong to the north of his home: Closest approach to Naga City: 02/0530 UTC - 87 nm to the NNE Highest wind speed: 45 kts from south at 02/0727 UTC Minimum barometric pressure: 991.4 mb at 02/0529 UTC Highest rainfall rates: (1) 62.5 mm/hr at 02/0206 UTC (2) 90.4 mm/hr at 01/1326 UTC Rainfall storm total: 173.7 mm 30 November - 02 December
(Report written by Kevin Boyle with significant contributions by Huang Chunliang and Michael V. Padua)
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