The East China Sea on Wednesday battered by the largest storm to hit the planet in 2022, endangering the southern islands of Japan and China's east coast with ferocious winds.
Super Typhoon “Hinnamnor” is currently packing sustained winds of about 160 miles (257 kilometers) per hour and has gusts over 195 miles per hour, according to the US Joint Typhoon Warning Centre. The maximum significant wave height is 50 feet (15 meters), NDTV reports.
Hinnamnor would be the strongest storm of 2022 based on the maximum sustained wind speed recorded at this point, according to an official at the Japan Meteorological Agency.
The Hong Kong Observatory said the typhoon was centred about 230 kilometres east of Japan's Okinawa on Wednesday and is forecast to move west-southwest at about 22 kilometres per hour toward the Ryukyu Islands.
On Tuesday evening, the typhoon was in Pacific waters south of Japan, 340 kilometres (210 miles) east-northeast of Minami Daito island, one of a string of remote isles that form the Okinawa region, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.
The weather agency expects the storm will strengthen to its top category "violent" from Wednesday evening.
Earlier this year, tropical cyclone Batsirai lashed Madagascar and the southern coast of Africa. It caused major infrastructural damages in the island-nation and killed 21 people.
Things are somewhat quieter over in the Atlantic, where a sustained period of calm is putting the area between Africa and the Caribbean, known as Hurricane Alley, on course for its quietest August - typically the start of the hurricane season's most active phase - in 25 years.
It was only in 1961 and 1997 that the region had stormless Augusts, according to data collected over a period of seven decades, as per Phil Klotzbach who authored Colorado State University’s seasonal storm forecast.
