October 23, 2020 - Typhoon Saudel

Typhoon Saudel

On October 22, 2020, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired a true-color image of Typhoon Saudel as it spun in the South China Sea. According to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, at 2100 UTC (6:00 p.m. EDT) on that same day Saudel was located approximately 330 miles (531 km) south-southeast of Hong Kong and was moving west north-westward at 7 mph (11 km/h). At that time, maximum sustained winds registered at about 86 mph (138 km/h), placing the storm at Category 1 strength on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.

Typhoon Saudel is forecast to track slowly on a more westward direction and pass south of Hainan, China before making landfall just north of Hue in central Vietnam by October 25. Favorable conditions make it likely that the storm will intensify to a peak of 92 mph (148 km/h) on October 23. After that time, Saudel is expected to weaken before making landfall in Vietnam. Once ashore, the typhoon should weaken quickly as it moves inland.

While not an extremely strong storm, Typhoon Saudel is forecast to strike an area already suffering from significant damage caused by the recent passing of Tropical Storm Linfa and Tropical Storm Nangka. According to the Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System (GDACS), as of October 21 there have been 111 fatalities, 22 missing, about 65,000 people evacuated, and over 800,000 impacted in Vietnam by those storms and subsequent floods. Additional casualties and flooding have occurred in Laos and Cambodia. The addition of wind and rain from Typhoon Saudel may trigger additional floods and increase damage across the already hard-hit region.

Image Facts
Satellite: Aqua
Date Acquired: 10/22/2020
Resolutions: 1km (526.6 KB), 500m (1.6 MB), 250m (4.8 MB)
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC