Category: News of the Jason-2 mission
While well above-average activity has occurred so far during the 2008 hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean, several typhoons have succeeded in the Western Pacific. After typhoon Sinlaku earlier on September, the typhoon Jangmi (that means "rose" in Korean) went by off the Phillipines and striked Taiwan Island between September  27 and September 30. 

<link fileadmin images news mod_actus jangmi_ogdr_j2_wind_20080923_20081002.jpg download>	<link fileadmin images news mod_actus jangmi_ogdr_j2_swh_20080923_20081002.jpg download>
Wind speed modulus (left) in m/s and Significant Wave Height in m (right) over the western Pacific from the OGDR of Jason-2. The passes 203 and 240 flew over the area the 27th and 28th of September, just as the typhoon was there.

Measurements of wind speed and significant wave height (SWH), deduced from the waveform of the echo from the radar altimeter, are used to help forecasts of such phenomena. By directly measuring the sea surface heights, Jason-2 will help to detect the areas where cyclones intensify. Just before striking the Taiwan Island, the typhoon went by a cold eddy (map below) and became less important from the category 5 above the cold eddy to the category 3 on the Taiwan Island. <link fileadmin images news mod_actus jangmi_sla_21451.jpg download>

Typhoon Jangmi intensity overlayed on a merged (SLA) map for the 24th of September. The hurricane intensity scale is blue for cat. 1, green for cat. 2, yellow for cat. 3, orange for cat.4 and red for category 5. The dates near the path indicates the date when the typhoon passed(Credits CLS/Cnes, Ssalto/Duacs).