Typhoon Mirinae (2009)

Typhoon Mirinae (Santi)

Typhoon (JMA scale)
Category 2 (Saffir–Simpson scale)
Typhoon Mirinae nearing landfall over the Philippines on October 30
Formed	October 25, 2009
Dissipated	November 3, 2009
Highest winds	10-minute sustained: 150 km/h (90 mph) 1-minute sustained: 165 km/h (105 mph)
Lowest pressure	955 hPa (mbar); 28.2 inHg
Fatalities	162 total
Damage	$295 million (2009 USD)
Areas affected	Mariana Islands, Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand
Part of the 2009 Pacific typhoon season

Typhoon Mirinae (pronounced [mi.ɾi.nɛ̝]), known in the Philippines as Typhoon Santi, was the 34th depression and the 14th typhoon in the 2009 Pacific typhoon season. It came several weeks after Typhoons Ketsana and Parma devastated the Philippines, thus adding additional damage wrought by the two typhoons.

Early on October 10, 2009, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) reported that an area of convection was developing over an elongated and broad low level circulation center within a monsoon trough about 500 km, 315 miles to the southeast of Pohnpei. The low level circulation center was located under a region of favourable divergence, however it was located in area of moderate to high vertical windshear which was hampering the low level circulation centers attempts to organize. Over the next couple of days the vertical windshear relaxed and as a result convection started to develop further with a Tropical Cyclone Formation Alert being issued by the JTWC late on October 25 after the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) had designated the disturbance as a weak tropical depression.The JTWC then designated the depression as 23W early the next morning as there had been an increase in convection consolidating near a developing low level circulation center. The JTWC then reported later that day that the depression had intensified into a Tropical Storm, however the JMA did not follow suit until early the next day when they assigned the international name of Mirinae to the storm as it passed over the island of Rota in the Northern Mariana Islands. As Mirinae entered the Philippine Area of Responsibility on October 28, the PAGASA assigned Mirinae the local name "Santi", the nineteenth named storm of the Philippines. Mirinae intensified steadily, eventually becoming a Category 2 typhoon, with peak winds of 105 mph (165 km/h). Due to increasing wind shear and its fast movement, Mirinae didn't intensify further. At this time Mirinae turned to the south-west, which it tracked for several days until its landfall along the province of Quezon at the night of October 30, with Mirinae as a Category 2 typhoon. As it left the Philippines, Mirinae has weakened to a tropical storm, with winds of 65 mph. It trekked the South China Sea, with Mirinae not intensifying beyond tropical storm force due to increasing wind shear and decreasing sea surface temperatures, as well as cooler and more stable air along the area. It ultimately made landfall on Vietnam on November 2, as a Category 1 typhoon. Mirinae quickly dissipated inland the same day.