Typhoon Lan Poses a $35 Billion Threat to Japan in Worst Case
- The storm is forecast to near Tokyo Bay early Monday
- Lan is the latest in a string of devastating storms in 2017
NASA-NOAA’s Suomi NPP satellite took a visible light picture of Typhoon Lan on Oct. 20 at 12:30 a.m. EDT and saw a clear eye in the powerful hurricane.
Source: NOAA/NASA Goddard Rapid Response TeamTyphoon Lan, which is forecast to strike near Tokyo early Monday morning, may cause an estimated $25 billion to $35 billion in damage, said Chuck Watson, a disaster modeler with Enki Research in Georgia.
Lan is about 1,169 miles (1,881 kilometers) south of Tokyo with top winds of almost 150 miles per hour. That would make it the equivalent of a Category 4 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center in Hawaii, a combined U.S. Navy and Air Force operation. While the storm’s expected to strengthen in the next day, it’s forecast to weaken as it nears the coastline.