MANILA, Phillippines — A thick ring of powerful, rotating thunderstorms surround typhoon Ompong (international name Mangkhut), according to the NASA-National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Suomi NPP satellite.
The satellite passed directly over the typhoon and looked into its almost 30 nautical-mile-wide eye as it heads toward northern Philippines.
On Wednesday evening, the Suomi NPP satellite had a direct view of the clear eye of "Ompong", which allowed it to see through it to the surface of the northwestern Pacific Ocean.
Meanwhile, satellite imagery from the US Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) showed a "symmetric and highly consolidated system with strong, compact feeder bands (bands of thunderstorms) spiraling tightly into a sharply-outlined 29 nautical mile wide eye."
The JTWC has classified "Ompong" as a super typhoon with powerful winds and gusts equivalent to a category 5 Atlantic hurricane.
"Ompong" is forecasted to make landfall over northern Cagayan by Saturday morning and make a second landfall south of Hong Kong, China on Sunday.
At 7 a.m., the typhoon was located 605 kilometers east of Baler, Aurora with maximum sustained winds of 205 kilometers per hour and gusts of up tp 255 kilometers per hour. It is moving west northwest at 20 kilometers per hour.
Northern Aurora, Isabela and Cagayan have been placed under signal no. 3 as the typhoon continues to threaten northern Luzon.
Office of Civil Defense chief Ricardo Jalad told an emergency meeting led by President Rodrigo Duterte that about 4.2 million people in Cagayan, nearby Isabela province and outlying regions are vulnerable to the most destructive effects near the typhoon's 125-kilometer (77-mile) -wide eye. Nearly 48,000 houses in those high-risk areas are made of light materials and vulnerable to Ompong's ferocious winds. — with Associated Press