NASA images show Super Typhoon In-fa as a rare annular storm near the Mariana Islands

3 November 2026

NASA's Earth Observatory has described Typhoon In-fa, which reached super typhoon strength near the Mariana Islands, as an annular storm. Such a storm is nearly circular and lacks the prominent outer rainbands of a standard tropical cyclone, and it has an unusually large eye: the eyes of annular storms average about 45 kilometres across, against about 25 kilometres for a standard tropical cyclone. Annular storms are rare, making up about 4 per cent of tropical cyclones in the western North Pacific. In-fa was the fifth typhoon to affect the Mariana Islands this year. Typhoon Champi, in the same set of images, peaked with maximum sustained winds of nearly 300 kilometres an hour and, though it narrowly skirted Taiwan and Guam, brought damaging winds and heavy rain to both as well as to parts of China and Japan, before its remnants underwent extratropical transition and approached Alaska, the fourth ex-typhoon to reach Alaskan waters this year. The Northwest Pacific had recorded 25 named storms by late October, and a strong El Nino is a likely contributor to the activity. The pictures came from the Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera aboard the DSCOVR satellite and from the MODIS instrument on Terra.