From space, Super Typhoon Champi looks almost unreal: a colossal spiral of clouds wrapped around a sharply defined eye, churning across the western Pacific.
The satellite graphics are jaw-dropping. So are the numbers.
On October 20, the National Weather Service reported maximum sustained winds of 180 mph, making Champi a Category 5-equivalent monster. That ties Hurricane Polo for the year’s second-highest peak wind speed, behind Super Typhoon Sinlaku at 185 mph.
And Champi has already delivered a frightening near miss.
The storm passed approximately 10 miles south of Guam’s southern tip over the weekend, with winds around 150 mph near its core. The National Weather Service warned that venturing outside amid the extreme winds could result in death from flying debris.
“Champi has developed into an absolute planetary powerhouse,” noted forecasters at Fox Weather, warning that “the sheer scale of the storm and its massive wind field poses severe threats to maritime lanes and coastal communities across the western Pacific.”
Fortunately, the eye stayed offshore. Guam Governor Lou Leon Guerrero reported relatively minimal damage, although officials closed airports, ports, and some medical facilities, and federal emergency assistance was authorized.
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For all its size, Champi’s eye was surprisingly compact when it skirted Guam: the National Weather Service measured it at roughly five to six miles wide. The often-shared description of a Rhode Island-sized eye actually came from a different Typhoon Champi in 2015.
Now Champi is racing west-northwest across the Philippine Sea. Forecasters expect it to gradually weaken, but the Ryukyu Islands, Okinawa, northern Taiwan, and nearby waters remain areas to watch for damaging winds, dangerous surf, and torrential rain.
Meanwhile, another potential cyclone is taking shape thousands of miles away.
Enter 94E, south of Mexico, could become a tropical depression in the coming days.
“Forecast models suggest the system could initially move northwest before turning back toward Mexico,” the FOX Forecast Center cautioned, adding that there is “considerable disagreement” about timing and track.
If it strengthens into a tropical storm, it will be named Vance—the eastern Pacific’s first V-named storm since Vicente in 2018.
That’s significant: storm names are assigned alphabetically, and reaching V underscores just how busy this record-breaking eastern Pacific season has become.
And it might not be finished yet.
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