Hurricane update - 18 August

Typhoon Sepat has passed over Taiwan, dumping 17 inches of rain on the island - no word on casualties or damage. This report was issued before the typhoon made landfall at around 8pm UK time last night. When I last looked at Taiwanese weather reports, an offshore island to the east of Taiwan reported force 12 winds.



Hurricane Dean has left three dead in the Antilles, after a mother and child were crushed in a landslide that took their house away; and after an elderly man was swept away in a raging river, trying to save a cow. The storm, a full category 4 hurricane, is winding itself up to become a category 5 system as it passes to the south of the Dominican Republic and Haiti, with Jamaica in its crosshairs. The latter island state can expect a direct hit on Sunday. Emergency shelters have been opened there. Hispaniola, with Haiti and the Dominican Republic on it, is bracing itself for high winds, torrential rains and landslides.
This island has mountains up to 8,000 feet high on it.

Dean will pass to the south of Cuba, before passing over or to the west of the Yucatan Peninsula into the Gulf of Mexico. Maximum sustained winds before Yucatan will be 140 knots, that is 155 mph or 250 kph. Gusts can be 170 knots or 190 mph. Not exactly brolly weather.