As warm, moist water vapor and cold air open up in the mainland's central and eastern parts, the largest range of rain and snow weather this year began on January 20. From January 20 to today, the snow in Henan and northwest Hubei has been intermittent for more than three days, and even some cities have seen heavy snowfall, and many places have been the largest snow in January in recent years.
The snow in Luoyang, from Weibo netizen @ May summer is sunny
And just when the mainland is raining and snowing in many places, and the temperature is moving towards a low level, the western Pacific Ocean in winter has shown signs of typhoon activity - in the early morning of January 24, Beijing time, just when the rain and snow across the mainland brought the winter atmosphere, the tropical clouds on the western Pacific Ocean east of the Philippines were surging and a cluster of tropical clouds was developing rapidly, which was called Typhoon Embryo 91W.
This is the first typhoon embryo since 2022, on the afternoon of January 24, from the high-definition visible light satellite cloud map, the 91W water vapor of the typhoon embryo east of the Philippines surged and convected, showing signs of active low-latitude convergence.
Then some netizens will ask, the emergence of typhoon embryos in the big winter, is the climate abnormal? In fact, as a global "warm pool", the western Pacific Ocean is unique in its activity of tropical cyclones – typhoons can be generated in 12 months of the year in spring, summer, autumn, winter, or even in 12 months a year. For example, in terms of sea temperature on January 24, although the mainland land is already very cold, there are still many areas of surface sea temperature in the South China Sea and the western Pacific East of the Philippines that exceed 28 degrees, which is still an active environment for typhoons.
At present, many supercomputer numerical forecasts have noted the existence of this typhoon embryo, and pointed out that it will develop on the warm sea near the Philippines, which may strengthen into a tropical depression, and do not rule out the possibility of developing into typhoon No. 1 this year.
There are also many supercomputer predictions that this typhoon embryo 91W will likely cross the Philippine archipelago into the South China Sea, and after entering the south-central Sea surface of the South China Sea, turn to the northeast, considering that the water temperature in the north-central part of the South China Sea in January is very low, and the sea temperature in many places is even less than 24 degrees, which can almost be said to be a "typhoon forbidden area", so even if this typhoon embryo develops into Typhoon No. 1, it is impossible to land on the mainland.
However, due to its later entry into the Mainland South China Sea, it may bring typhoon rain to the south China Sea islands. Some supercomputer forecasts also pointed out that because the typhoon embryo may be north in the South China Sea in the late stage, the wreckage after it goes north and the cold air may send rain to Taiwan, Guangdong, Fujian and other countries along the southern coast of the mainland, if this forecast comes true, it will become the earliest typhoon affecting the mainland since Typhoon 7501. Although typhoons can be generated in the western Pacific Ocean in December, it is still very rare for typhoons to affect the mainland in January, which may be related to la Niña since last autumn and winter.