Super Typhoon Vongfong is currently roiling the Pacific Ocean, creating waves of 50 feet or higher, thanks to sustained winds of 165 miles per hour. The storm is on course to make landfall in Japan, with its impacts reaching the Ryukyu Islands as early as Saturday, followed by mainland Japan.
The Super Typhoon peaked in strength late on Tuesday, when it contained sustained winds of at least 180 miles per hour with gusts higher than 200 miles per hour. Satellite imagery and computer model simulations from Tuesday and Wednesday show the storm in stunning detail. Here are some of the most striking images.
The eye of Vongfong has fluctuated between about 19 and 30 miles wide. The storm has exhibited spirals of low clouds in the middle of the eye, where the air is sinking and warming, and the winds are comparatively calm.
These images were taken as the morning sun began to illuminate the storm on Tuesday afternoon, eastern time, and posted by the University of Wisconsin.
The storm still looks about as fierce on Wednesday.
Via @NASANPP's VIIRS day/night band, #Vongfong at 12:44 pm EDT, courtesy of reflected (full) moonlight. (RAMMB/CIRA) pic.twitter.com/t9elFxJ9cu— NOAA Satellites (@NOAASatellites) October 8, 2014
This image, taken using the VIIRS infrared imager aboard NASA's Suomi NPP polar-orbiting satellite, depicts the storm at peak intensity. The red to gray hues around the eye represent extremely cold cloud tops that indicate towering thunderheads, likely extending up to 50,000 feet or more in height.
Here's an extreme closeup of the eye, from when the storm was at near-peak intensity on Tuesday.
To put the storm into broader geographic context, here's two images of the Western Pacific Ocean basin, the first from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the second from the Earth Simulator.
This image, sent via Twitter by the Ocean Prediction Center in Maryland, shows Super Typhoon Vongfong in the lower left, and post-tropical storm Phanfone, which was once a super typhoon that struck Japan last weekend, nearing Alaska. This illustrates the conveyor belt of storms targeting Japan during the past two weeks, and in fact during much of this year's typhoon season.
West Pacific visible image reveals Super Typhoon #Vongfong and 952 mb, hurricane force post-tropical low of #Phanfone pic.twitter.com/J7I3QHDvdn— NWS OPC (@NWSOPC) October 8, 2014
This infrared satellite image, from NOAA, shows the huge ring of intense thunderstorms that surrounded Vongfong's eye on Tuesday (and on Wednesday, too).
The storm looks like a donut -- which is a sign of an extremely healthy, violent storm.
[img src="http://admin.mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/floaterrainbow.jpg" caption="Infrared "rainbow" satellite image of Super Typhoon Vongfong on Oct. 7, 2014." credit="NOAA" alt="Satellite image"]
This story has more info on the storm's predicted path, and the potential consequences for Japan.