With howling winds, slamming rains, power outages and a monster storm with a wobbling forecast track, residents of the Mariana Islands are spending a restless night awaiting the arrival of Super Typhoon Bavi.
The storm was packing winds of 180 mph and gusts of 215 mph as it approached the island chain.
At 1 a.m. Monday, the system was located at 13.7 north latitude and 146.9 east longitude, about 134 miles east of Andersen Air Force Base. It had been tracking to the west-northwest over the past six hours, but had been heading in a more westerly direction over the past three hours.
The Joint Typhoon Warning Center said the storm was likely to pass just seven miles north of Rota.
National Weather Service forecasters warned that “wobbles in the general forward motion of Bavi maintain a general level of uncertainty as to the ultimate passage through the Marianas. Bavi could still pass within an area as far south as the central/northern Rota Channel to Tinian, in the north.”
Life-threatening weather conditions prevailed across the Marianas early Monday with a flash flood warning, coastal flood warnings, high surf warnings, a flood advisory and a flood watch in effect.
In addition, National Weather Service forecasters were considering issuing rare tornado warnings as the storm approached.
Meteorologist Brandon Aydlett said special marine warnings were sent out about strong waterspouts beginning Sunday evening. So far, the waterspouts have stayed offshore, but radar indicates the systems could drop over land.
If they do, they would likely be on land for no more than 10 minutes.
Aydlett said residents should be aware of the phenomenon.
“The bigger message for right now is to be aware these features are out there. They're dropping southward across the waters surrounding Guam, Rota, Tinian and Saipan. If they come over your area, it's going to be a much stronger, very brief increase in winds, not exceeding the high-end Category 5 winds that we're overall expecting across the CNMI, but it's going to be a relatively stronger burst of winds.”
He said if residents have a weather app notifying them of a tornado warning in the islands, the tornado won’t be a massive twister. In fact, it will probably dissipate by the time the warning reaches the public.
