No Debby Development / Saomai gains strength

The tropical wave that looked so promising moving westward from the Cape Verde islands is now just about gone. The surface circulation has pretty much disintegrated, and there are only a few disorganized thunderstorms remaining. Dry air drawn into the path of the developing storm seems to have taken its toll.

Meanwhile, over in Asia, several major changes have happened to the three storms I mentioned earlier. Tropical Storm Maria briefly became a typhoon, but has since made a very sharp recurvature to avoid making landfall in Japan. Bopha crossed Taiwan as a minimal tropical storm, and is now downgraded to a depression. While Maria and Bopha both fizzled, Typhoon Saomai has become a very dangerous storm with 145 mph winds. It is expected to maintain or possibly strength as it passes just north of Taiwan, and then hits the Chinese coast betweeen Fuzhou and Wenzhou tomorrow. The inland track of Saomai will take it through some incredibly densely populated areas, and the damage is likely to be devastating.