'Monster' Typhoon Ioke Makes Direct Hit on Wake Island
Super Typhoon Ioke has made a direct hit on Wake Island, pounding the tiny U.S. Pacific territory with catastrophic winds of up to 300 kilometers an hour. Ioke is the strongest central Pacific typhoon in at least 12 years. Forecasters expect the "monster" storm to submerge Wake Island and destroy everything on it that is not made of concrete.
Wake is home to a U.S. Air Force base and a scientific outpost, roughly midway between Hawaii and Japan.
The eye of the typhoon skirted the north edge of the coral atoll Thursday. The U.S. Air Force had already evacuated all of the island's 188 residents to Hawaii, 3,700 kilometers across the Pacific.
The residents - Air Force personnel and American and Thai contractors - left Monday aboard two U.S. C-17 Globemaster planes. It was the first time the territory was evacuated in nearly 30 years.
sustained winds at 220mph? someone has their information screwed up.
That's the biggest pounding Wake island's taken since Hurricane George Hebert Walker Bush clubbed it with explosives back in '43.
I can say I've been to Wake; refueled there on the way to Vietnam, 1968.
And the Drive-by-media said..............
Sweepers man your brooms!
Of course the storm may have cleaned off the entire island...
Send Rather to hang onto a lamppost in 250 MPH winds, Shep too.
220?? Is that a misprint?
RMKS/ 1. FOR METEOROLOGISTS. 2. PROGNOSTIC REASONING FOR 311200Z AUG TO 051200Z SEP 2006. A. SUPER TYPHOON (STY) 01C (IOKE), LOCATED APPROXIMATELY 30 NM NORTHWEST OF WAKE ISLAND, HAS TRACKED WEST-NORTHWESTWARD AT 12 KNOTS OVER THE PAST SIX HOURS.
B. MID-LEVEL RIDGING TO THE NORTHEAST OF STY 01C REMAINS THE DOM- INANT STEERING INFLUENCE FOR THE SYSTEM. THE RIDGING WILL CONTINUE TO EXTEND WESTWARD AS A MIDLATITUDE TROUGH, CURRENTLY LOCATED OVER JAPAN, LIFTS NORTHWARD. THIS WILL MAINTAIN STY 01C ON ITS NORTHWEST- WARD TRACK THROUGH TAU 72. THE AVAILABLE DYNAMIC AIDS CONSISTING OF NOGAPS, COAMPS, GFDN, NCEP GFS, AFWA MM5, JGSM, JTYM, EGRR, TCLAPS, AND WBAR ARE IN GOOD AGREEMENT WITH THIS SCENARIO.
C. THE SYSTEM IS EXPECTED TO MAINTAIN SUPER TYPHOON INTENSITY THROUGH TAU 48 AS THE RADIAL OUTFLOW REMAINS FAVORABLE. A SLIGHT INCREASE IN VERTICAL WIND SHEAR WILL BEGIN TO SLOWLY WEAKEN STY 01C BEYOND TAU 48 THROUGH TAU 72. SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURES (SSTS) WILL REMAIN FAVORABLE THROUGH TAU 72, BUT WILL BECOME LESS FAVORABLE AS THE SYSTEM MOVES NORTHWARD.
D. CURRENT WIND RADII ARE BASED ON A 310830Z SSMIS AND A 310635Z WINDSAT PASS. FORECAST WIND RADII ARE BASED ON CLIMATOLOGY FOR AN AVERAGE TO LARGE-SIZED SYSTEM.
E. IN THE EXTENDED FORECAST FROM TAU 72 TO TAU 120 STY 01C WILL CONTINUE TO TRACK NORTHWESTWARD AND WILL SLOWLY WEAKEN DUE TO ITS TRACK INTO COOLER SSTS. AN INCREASE IN VERTICAL WIND SHEAR WILL ALSO HELP TO WEAKEN THE SYSTEM THROUGH TAU 120. A SLIGHT POLEWARD DRIFT IS EXPECTED BETWEEN TAU 96 AND TAU 120 AS AN APPROACHING MIDLATITUDE TROUGH STARTS TO WEAKEN THE SUBTROPICAL RIDGE. AVAILABLE GUIDANCE INDICATES THAT EVEN AS THE RIDGE BEGINS TO WEAKEN, THE SYSTEM WILL STILL CONTINUE TO TRACK TOWARDS THE NORTHERN PORTION OF JAPAN. FORECAST TEAM: BRAVO// NNNN
"The "98 Rock" is a memorial for the 98 U.S. Prisoners of War who were forced by their Japanese captors to rebuild the airstrip as slave labor, then blind-folded and killed with machine guns on 5 October 1943.
An unidentified prisoner escaped, and scratched "98 US PW 5-10-43" on a large coral rock near their mass grave, on Wilkes Island at the edge of the lagoon.
He was recaptured and beheaded by the Japanese admiral, who was later convicted and executed for these war crimes.
The rock still bears the original inscription and a small plaque identifying it; a bronze plaque naming the victims has been placed at the site.
There are also memorials for the military and civilian personnel who died defending the islands from the Japanese take-over.
The remains of Japanese fortifications during World War II are still visible around the islands".
sw
ugggh
I live New Orleans, and I involuntarily shuddered and glanced at the clouds outside when I saw this
better hope they got EVERYBODY off, cuz whether they did or not nobody'll be there when they get back
Fox News has revised the wind speed estimates in their article - "The storm, packing sustained winds of more than 165 mph, with some gusts topping 190 mph, came ashore at about 10 a.m. ET..."
Luckily, there isn't much at Wake to rebuild nowadays. The runway is strictly an emergency landing site for trans-Pacific flights, and the only other facilities on the islands are radar sites for monitoring those same flights. There are still some old missile detection arrays there too, mostly cold-war holdovers that were kept online to provide minimal screening just in case North Korea gets stupid.
It's still technically military territory, but the military completely pulled out years ago. All that's left are some civilian contractors paid to keep the runways operable and the radar installations functioning.
Historically it's a fairly major loss though. Lots of WWII-era structures and markers will be washed away by the floodwaters, and the beaches we fought on may cease to exist. These weren't going to last forever anyway, but it's sad to see them washed away all at once like this.
