{"id":69842,"date":"2026-04-12T21:15:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T21:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/?p=69842"},"modified":"2026-04-13T22:15:43","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T22:15:43","slug":"super-typhoon-sinlaku-rapidly-intensifies-to-a-category-5-storm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/archives\/69842","title":{"rendered":"Super Typhoon Sinlaku rapidly intensifies to a Category 5 storm"},"content":{"rendered":"

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2.5-minute Himawari-9 Infrared (10.4 \u00b5m) images, from 0602 UTC on 12 April to 0602 UTC on 13 April [click to play animated GIF]<\/p><\/div>2.5-minute Target Sector JMA<\/strong><\/a> Himawari-9 AHI<\/strong><\/a> Infrared images (above)<\/strong><\/em> showed Super Typhoon Sinlaku as it rapidly intensified to a 160-knot Category 5 storm (ADT<\/strong><\/a> | SATCON<\/strong><\/a>) by 1800 UTC on 12 April 2026, southeast of Saipan (station identifier PGSN) in the Mariana Islands. Cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures began to gradually warm once Sinlaku reached peak intensity.<\/p>\n

A nocturnal NOAA-20 VIIRS Day\/Night Band image (below)<\/em><\/strong> provided a stunning example of mesospheric airglow waves that were propagating radially outward from Sinlaku.<\/p>\n

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NOAA-20 VIIRS Day\/Night Band (0.7 \u00b5m) image at 1445 UTC on 12 April [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>Microwave images from DMSP-18 and ATMS (below)<\/strong><\/em> did display evidence of dry air becoming entrained into the circulation of Sinlaku, which was beginning to surround the well-defined eye and eyewall..<\/p>\n

DMSP-18 SSMIS Microwave (85 GHz) image at 0850 UTC on 12 April<\/p><\/div>\n

ATMS Microwave (183 GHz) image at 1547 UTC on 12 April<\/p><\/div>\n

Sinlaku was moving through an environment characterized by fairly low values of deep-layer wind shear (below)<\/strong><\/em> — one factor which favored the rapid intensification of this tropical cyclone.<\/p>\n

Himawari-9 Infrared (11.2 \u00b5m) images, with an overlay of contours and streamlines of deep-layer wind shear at 1800 UTC on 12 April<\/p><\/div>\n

Sinlaku was also traversing warm water, as seen in relatively high values of Sea Surface Temperature and Ocean Heat Content (below)<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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Sea Surface Temperature and Ocean Heat Content, with a plot of Sinlaku’s track ending at 1800 UTC on 12 April<\/p><\/div>\n

Himawari-9 Infrared images with plots of Mesoscale Atmospheric Motion Vectors or AMVs (below)<\/strong><\/em> highlighted areas of high-altitude radial outflow — which enhanced upper-level divergence<\/strong><\/a> and promoted the maintenance of convective updrafts.<\/p>\n

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Himawari-9 Infrared (11.2 \u00b5m) images with plots of Mesoscale Atmospheric Motion Vectors (AMVs), from 2034 UTC on 11 April to 2214 UTC on 12 April [click to play MP4 animation]<\/p><\/div>Microwave, Wind Shear, Sea Surface Temperature, Ocean Heat Content, Mesoscale AMVs, ADT and SATCON images\/plots were sourced from the CIMSS Tropical Cyclones<\/strong><\/a> site.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2.5-minute Target Sector JMA Himawari-9 AHI Infrared images (above) showed Super Typhoon Sinlaku as it rapidly intensified to a 160-knot Category 5 storm (ADT | SATCON) by 1800 UTC on 12 April 2026, southeast of Saipan (station identifier PGSN) in the Mariana Islands. Cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures began to gradually warm once Sinlaku reached peak […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":69843,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[89,56,73,79,78,25,2,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-atms","category-dmsp","category-himawari-9","category-microwave","category-noaa-20","category-satellite-winds","category-tropical-cyclones","category-viirs"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69842"}],"version-history":[{"count":34,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69842\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69898,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69842\/revisions\/69898"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}