Typhoon Choi-wan Stalls Over the Northern Marianas

Typhoon Choi-wan spent the end of the week nearly parked over the Northern Mariana Islands, a United States commonwealth roughly 3,700 miles west of Hawaii. The storm reached Saipan and Tinian as a tropical storm on Thursday, October 1. It then slowed to a crawl and held its wind and rain over the two islands into Saturday. As of 8:26 a.m. Saturday local time, the National Weather Service in Guam placed the center about 235 miles north-northwest of Saipan with maximum sustained winds of 85 mph, a Category 1 typhoon. Forecasters expect it to reach Category 2 as it passes Agrihan on Saturday and Category 3 by Saturday night.

A typhoon warning covers the small northern islands of Alamagan, Agrihan, and Pagan. They can expect typhoon-force winds of 74 mph or more and 8 to 14 inches of rain, with up to 20 inches possible near the center. Saipan and Tinian remain under a tropical storm warning. Those islands are looking at winds of 35 to 45 mph with gusts to 60 mph and 4 to 6 inches of rain by early Monday. Surf of 10 to 14 feet is pounding the reefs on the north, south, and west sides. The Weather Service told residents to shelter in place until the all-clear is given. Every figure above is as of the Saturday morning advisory and will keep moving while the storm does.

The Governor of the Commonwealth declared Tropical Storm Condition II for Saipan and Tinian on Thursday afternoon and set the islands on course for Condition I as the storm closed in. Public schools, government offices, and the federal court shut their doors. The Commonwealth Utilities Corporation warned customers to expect power service interruptions and closed its Saipan and Tinian offices while crews waited out the wind. These are the same islands that took a direct hit from Super Typhoon Sinlaku in April, when Category 4 winds caused an island-wide blackout and weeks of repairs. Many households there are riding out a second storm with those repairs still in progress.

A storm that stalls is the hard case for any household plan. Three days of tropical storm conditions means three days with no trip to the store. The generator burns through its fuel and the freezer quietly warms up. The habits that let a family survive a hurricane are built around a three day window for exactly this reason. If you live anywhere a tropical system can reach, from the Gulf Coast to Hawaii to the Pacific territories, a quiet weekend like this one is the time to prepare for a hurricane. Fill your water storage containers before the watch goes up, since a long outage can take the local pumps down with it. Review the dos and don'ts during a hurricane before the shutters go up, not after.

Forecasters expect the center to keep moving north and away from Saipan and Tinian through the weekend, but the rain bands linger into Monday and the cleanup will run longer than the storm did. Flooded roads, downed lines, and spotty power are the normal shape of the aftermath of a hurricane. If your own home sits in storm country, treat this one as a drill. Check the fuel in the can, the batteries in the radio, and the contents of your power outage kit. You will be ready rather than scared when the next cone drifts toward your coast.