Sprawling Typhoon Megi plows into Taiwan with howling winds, flooding rains
UPDATE: Sept. 27, 2016, 5:18 p.m. EDT Typhoon Megi has killed at least four people and injured upwards of 250, according to the Associated Press. The storm lashed Taipei with tropical storm force winds for 14 straight hours, with a peak wind gust just shy of 100 miles per hour.
An intensifying, Category 4 Typhoon Megi barreled into Taiwan early Tuesday morning eastern time, spreading its destructive power across the entire typhoon-weary island. Social media posts from Taiwan reveal that the island took a beating from this unusually large storm, with damaging winds spreading across the entire north-to-south length of the island.
Strong winds buffeted the capital of Taipei, with wind gusts reaching at least 63 miles per hour at the city's international airport despite the fact that the center of the storm made landfall about 100 miles to the south of the city, in Haulien.
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At least a foot of rain had fallen in some of the island's higher elevations, with more still to come on Tuesday night into Wednesday morning, local time.
Storm chasers Josh Morgerman and James Reynolds are both in Taiwan and took some impressive videos of the storm's wrath, as well as the eerie calm within the eye.
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Here's what the storm looked like in Taipei, where access to freshwater and power supplies were both interrupted for many residents:
Typhoon Megi is the fifth such storm to affect Taiwan this year, and it is moving toward an area of mainland China that has repeatedly been flooded due to previous storms.
The storm comes just two weeks after Super Typhoon Meranti, the strongest storm on Earth this year, narrowly averted landfall in southern Taiwan.
Still, at least 600,000 homes were left without water or power due to Meranti.
Andrew Freedman is Mashable's Senior Editor for Science and Special Projects. Prior to working at Mashable, Freedman was a Senior Science writer for Climate Central. He has also worked as a reporter for Congressional Quarterly and Greenwire/E&E Daily. His writing has also appeared in the Washington Post, online at The Weather Channel, and washingtonpost.com, where he wrote a weekly climate science column for the "Capital Weather Gang" blog. He has provided commentary on climate science and policy for Sky News, CBC Radio, NPR, Al Jazeera, Sirius XM Radio, PBS NewsHour, and other national and international outlets. He holds a Masters in Climate and Society from Columbia University, and a Masters in Law and Diplomacy from The Fletcher School at Tufts University.
