Category 5 Super Typhoon Bavi Slams U.S. Mariana Islands With 180 MPH Winds

A monstrous Category 5 storm, Super Typhoon Bavi, tore across the U.S. Northern Mariana Islands early Monday local time with maximum sustained winds of 180 miles per hour, its eyewall grinding over the island of Rota as tens of thousands of residents were ordered to shelter in place against what forecasters warned could be catastrophic damage.

The typhoon reached Category 5 strength over the western North Pacific on Saturday and had barely weakened as it bore down on the Marianas, a chain of remote American territories roughly 1,500 miles east of the Philippines. Guam's Joint Information Center reported the 180 mph winds at 7 a.m. Monday as the system continued to churn west-northwest. Bavi is the third Category 5 storm anywhere on Earth in 2026.

The National Weather Service in Guam had issued a Typhoon Watch on Saturday local time for Guam, Rota, Tinian and Saipan, warning of sustained winds near 175 mph with gusts up to 210 mph — strong enough to flatten poorly built structures, snap power lines and render islands without electricity for weeks. As the eyewall passed over Rota on Monday morning, officials urged residents to remain indoors and away from windows, cautioning that the temporary calm of the storm's eye could give way within minutes to renewed extreme winds from the opposite direction.

The Marianas are especially vulnerable. Home to about 50,000 people across Saipan, Tinian and Rota, plus roughly 150,000 on nearby Guam, the islands have limited infrastructure and depend on shipping and air links that a direct hit can sever for days. Forecasters had tracked Bavi passing near Tinian and Saipan on Sunday afternoon U.S. Eastern time before its closest approach to Rota, a sequence that put multiple populated islands in the path of the core within a single 24-hour window.

Meteorologists said the ridge of high pressure steering Bavi would keep pushing the storm to the west-northwest, carrying the threat toward Taiwan or southeastern China by Friday, July 10. For now, the immediate danger remained in the Marianas, where emergency managers braced for downed communications, flooding and a long recovery once the winds finally eased. Damage assessments were expected only after the storm cleared and it was safe for crews to move.