Okinawa appears to be dodging another weather bullet, as Typhoon Matsa moves on a northwesterly track that will miss the main island. Weather officials Wednesday were tracking the storm as it moved north, packing 85 knot winds gusting to 105 knots. Their forecast is for the storm to pass over the southern Yaeyama and Miyako areas before drawing a bead on Shangai, China, where it’s expected to skirt the coastline early Sunday morning. For Okinawa’s main island, that means rain, and some winds. The typhoon’s been intensifying as it rumbles north at an average 14kph speed. They caution, though, that storm courses can always change without warning. Typhoon Matsa was pushing 25kph as it approached southern Okinawa, then picked up strength to 35m/s ~ 40m/s. Waves are rolling higher, and warnings have gone out to fishermen and commercial vessels to skirt the storm area, which stretches west to cover Taiwan, and east beyond Naha. The worst for Naha and central Okinawa should come late tonight and early Friday, as the storm passes 225 miles west of Kadena.
