Taiwan issues a land warning and cancels 125 flights as Typhoon Champi, once the strongest storm on Earth this year, closes on the island

Taiwan is battening down for the strongest storm of its year. The Central Weather Administration issued a land warning on Thursday ahead of Typhoon Champi, which weakened slightly during the day but was still packing gusts of more than 227 kilometers an hour, about 141 miles an hour, near its center. At its peak Champi was a super typhoon, and one of the strongest storms recorded anywhere in the Pacific this year.

On Thursday the storm sat about 250 kilometers, 155 miles, southeast of Yilan on Taiwan's northeastern coast. Its track carries it past the island's northeast, then north toward the Chinese coast and eventually southern Japan, passing first over Yonaguni, Japan's westernmost inhabited island in Okinawa Prefecture. The storm's radius expanded slightly to 320 kilometers, large enough to cover most of Taiwan, and weather experts said its effects could last nearly two days. It is expected to be at its closest to Taiwan late on Friday, off the northeastern coast, before heading north toward the seas off Shanghai.

The preparations are measured so far. Taiwan's transport ministry said 125 flights were cancelled on Thursday, mostly domestic ones, while the rail network was so far unaffected, and the interior ministry said no evacuations of residents had yet been reported. Mobile phone alerts warned coastal towns of waves higher than 6 meters, and total rainfall of nearly one meter, about 3 feet, is expected in the northern mountain areas, including the hills near Taipei. In China, media reported that Zhejiang province has begun moving vulnerable residents, including elderly people, the sick and pregnant women, out of the areas most likely to be hit, and more than a thousand fishing boats were ordered back to port.

Typhoons are more common in the summer months, but they strike in autumn too, and Taiwan's preparation systems are built for them, which keeps casualties low in most storms. Champi is the test of a different kind: a storm that spent days as the strongest on the planet this year, arriving at an island in late October, with its final strength still to be decided over cooler water on the approach, as of October 22.