Twin typhoons roar in Pacific

Doyle Rice | USA TODAY

A pair of typhoons — Goni and Atsani — continued to spin in the western Pacific Ocean on Tuesday. One or both could strengthen into super typhoons over the coming days, potentially threatening portions of Southeast Asia.

As of Tuesday afternoon ET, Goni was located 628 miles south-southeast of Okinawa, Japan, and had winds of 115 mph, while Atsani had winds of 138 mph, according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center. Atsani was located almost 700 miles east-northeast of Guam.

Goni should be past its peak intensity before it takes aim at the corridor from Taiwan to South Korea and Japan this weekend into next week, AccuWeather said. Atsani could threaten eastern Japan sometime next week.

Multiple tropical systems roaming the western Pacific are far from unusual, according to AccuWeather. "What is uncommon is the fact that there could be two super typhoons at the same time," said AccuWeather Meteorologist Anthony Sagliani. The last time that occurred was October 1997 with Ivan and Joan.

One fascinating meteorological phenomenon could potentially affect the storms: The "Fujiwhara effect," whereby the winds of two different systems affect each other.

Storms involved in the Fujiwhara effect are rotating around one another as if they had locked arms and were square dancing, according to former USA TODAY Weather editor Jack Williams. "Rather than each storm spinning about the other, they are actually moving about a central point between them, as if both were tied to the same post and each swung around it separately of the other," he said.

The effect is named after Sakuhei Fujiwhara, who was the chief of the Central Meteorological Bureau in Tokyo shortly after World War I.

At the moment, the two storms are a bit too far apart for this stormy waltz, according to the Weather Underground.