Tropical Storm Francisco (10W) – Tropical Cyclone Advisory #5: 1200 UTC 24 July 2025

Poorly organized Francisco passing southwest of Okinawa. Gusty winds and heavy rain to move across the island during the next several hours...

Author

Will Weaver
July 24, 2025

…Poorly organized Francisco passing southwest of Okinawa… …Gusty winds and heavy rain to move across the island during the next several hours…

Himawari-9 infrared satellite image (Weathernerds)

Current storm information:

  • Position: 26.0°N 126.9°E

  • Movement: NNW at 12 knots (20 km/h)

  • Intensity: 40 knots (75 km/h)

  • Central pressure: 990 hPa

Trend:

  • Francisco is forecast to weaken and dissipate during the next 24 hours.

Watches and warnings:

  • There are no land-based watches or warnings in effect.

Hazards affecting land:

  • Francisco is likely to produce heavy rain and gusty winds over the Yaeyama and Ryukyu Islands (including Okinawa) through Friday afternoon. Additional information for U.S. military interests on Okinawa can be found at the Stars & Stripes Pacific Storm Tracker: https://www.stripes.com/theaters/asia_pacific/storm_tracker/

Discussion:

Himawari-9 infrared satellite image (Weathernerds)

Francisco remains a very poorly organized system, and whether or not it is still a tropical cyclone is up for debate. With the exception of convection located well to the southeast along the monsoon trough, the structure of Francisco’s convection has broken down and now consists of flaring clusters developing and shearing off to the northeast of the center. The circulation, meanwhile, is very broadly elongated from southwest and northeast, and an Oceansat-3 scatterometer pass from 0356 UTC indicated that the circulation is barely closed, with only some very light west winds south of the center and what appears to be a trough extending southwestward. In fact, the streamlines on the CIMSS shear analysis . Despite Francisco’s poor structure, the Oceansat pass indicates that the storm is still producing a wide swath of 35 to 40 kt winds mainly to the north and northeast of the center, so the intensity remains 40 kts. 

Composite radar image (CyclonicWx)

Francisco is currently in the process of degenerating into a broad monsoonal low pressure area, and this process is expected to continue during the next 24 hours. Very strong southwesterly shear associated with an upper-level trough in the East China Sea should help accelerate this process, and by Friday evening Francisco should decay into a trough within a much larger and weaker monsoonal system north of the Yaeyama Islands. This monsoon depression will also absorb the remnants of Typhoon Co-May and likely linger off the coast of China producing a wide belt of 25 to 30 kt winds extending from the Luzon Strait all the way to Kyushu through early next week. Although Francisco is forecast to dissipate, Francisco and its remnants will likely retain gale force winds for the next couple of days.

Forecast positions and maximum winds

  • 00 hrs: 26.0°N 126.9°E – 40 kts

  • 12 hrs: 26.5°N 123.8°E – 40 kts

  • 24 hrs: Dissipated

JMA forecast map