The powerful Typhoon Mawar, whose eyewall hit the U.S. territory of Guam with the force of a damaging Category 4 hurricane, was regaining strength and had become a super typhoon as it moved away from the island on Thursday and headed west toward the Philippines, Taiwan and, possibly, Japan.
Exactly where and when it might threaten people again was still debatable. An area of high pressure over the Pacific Ocean will steer the storm to the west over the next several days. During that period over the open water, the storm will likely undergo some moderate intensification, while also going through some mild fluctuations during eyewall-replacement cycles — a process similar to what happened right before the storm neared Guam.
The storm, deemed a super typhoon because its winds reached around 150 miles per hour after it passed by Guam, will be approaching the Philippines by the weekend, but it is likely to stay north of the country. However, some computer forecast models show it impacting the northern portion of Luzon, leaving a small possibility of landfall in the Philippines.
After the weekend, a handful of the forecast models project the storm turning to the north, and then quickly to the northeast. Such a track could potentially keep the storm from impacting Taiwan, China or South Korea. Depending on the timing of other weather systems in the area, the storm could track further west, moving toward Taiwan, or northwest toward Japan.
Those developments wouldn’t come until late next week and into the following weekend and a lot could change in the atmosphere within that time frame. As the storm moves north, toward or away from Japan, it is expected to encounter cooler waters and to begin to weaken.
Christine Hauser, Claire Fahy, Lauren McCarthy, Eduardo Medina, Victoria Kim, and Derrick Bryson Taylor contributed reporting.
