Hurricane Hunter 914 wrote:Well, first, at 18Z Chanchu didn't have that feature on infrared. Secondly, it still doesn't have a clear eye, although it is consolidating. Right now, I'd say Chanchu is around 70KT... maybe 75KT. We'll see what JMA says fairly soon...
Those are just estimates. They don't have recon that checks wind speeds. How do we know if the JMA is trustworthy? What they are doing is looking at the system on SAT and guessing the wind speeds.
JMA isn't "just guessing the wind speeds." They actually are comparing surface observations (from ships and from land) and extrapolating them into the storm. Simply put... this storm isn't nearly as strong as JTWC is saying. Furthermore, look at the storm -- in my experience in WPAC storms, this is weaker than what the JTWC is saying. Granted, I think it's a little stronger than what JMA is saying.
Facts are... JMA is saying ~63 KT.
PAGASA is saying ~59KT.
JTWC is saying 90KT.
Who would you want to trust? The two agencies that are close to the storm with the greatest amount of experience (JMA and PAGASA) or the JTWC with limited experience. (Sorry, but the operational forecasters only have a couple of years of experience.)