1950 Pacific typhoon season

A new warning office and different counts

The site's archive holds 44 systems for 1950. Eighteen reached tropical storm strength on one-minute winds of 34 kt or more, 12 reached typhoon strength and 6 reached 96 kt. Accumulated cyclone energy came to 156.4. The archive has no wind estimate for 26 of the systems, most of them short-lived storms that only Chinese or Japanese analyses tracked; the missing values mean no one-minute estimate exists for them.

1950 was the first season in which the Fleet Weather Center on Guam, a predecessor of the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, took on most of the warning and naming work in the basin. Earlier storms had been identified and named by the United States armed services. The article's list of systems mixes storms from the American best track with ones recorded only by the China Meteorological Administration or the Japan Meteorological Agency on ten-minute winds, which is why several entries carry numbers instead of names and why its storm list runs longer than the site's count of 18.

Typhoon Doris opens the year in May

The first system appeared on 12 April and lasted three days without touching land. Typhoon Doris formed on 6 May, became the season's first typhoon the next day and peaked at 130 kt on 10 May, a Category 4 strength that no later storm matched. Its lowest recorded pressure was 922 mbar. Doris stayed over open water and dissipated on 14 May.

A weak tropical storm brushed Taiwan in early June, and Typhoon Elsie peaked at 75 kt on 23 June before fading at sea. In mid-July three systems formed within a few days of each other. Tropical Storm Flossie reached Japan, and Typhoon Grace, which peaked at 70 kt on 18 July, affected Korea and Japan.

A crowded summer around Japan

Tropical Storm Helene formed on 24 July, stalled near Japan and then raced toward China, dissipating on 1 August. It caused two deaths. In the first week of August three small storms, recorded by Chinese and Japanese analysts, came ashore in Japan one after another, the second of them on Hokkaido. Another storm in mid-August crossed Japan and reached South Korea while fighting in the Korean War was under way there.

Typhoon Ida, the longest-lived storm of the summer, stayed at tropical strength from 9 to 21 August and peaked at 75 kt without striking land.

Typhoons Jane and Kezia strike western Japan

Typhoon Jane formed in late August and peaked at 100 kt on 2 September. It weakened to Category 2 as it accelerated north-northeast, then came ashore in the Osaka, Kobe and Kyoto area. It crossed Kyoto Prefecture and the Noto Peninsula as a tropical storm, passed west of Sado Island and made later landfalls in Aomori Prefecture and on southern Hokkaido. Flooding and landslides from Jane killed 539 people in Japan.

Typhoon Kezia followed within days, peaking at 100 kt on 8 September and holding tropical strength until 14 September. On 13 September it reached waters off Kyushu, where it caught part of the fleet and grounded Australian P-51 Mustangs at Iwakuni for two days. It left 30 dead, 19 missing and 35 injured in Japan, with damage in western Japan that included harm to buildings at Itsukushima Shrine and the loss of the Kintai Bridge.

Late intense typhoons and a New Year's storm

Typhoon Ossia peaked at 100 kt on 3 October and affected the Philippines. Typhoon Ruby reached the same 100 kt late in October over open water, and Typhoon Petie peaked at 90 kt without reaching land. Typhoon Clara, which formed in early November, peaked at 125 kt on 8 November and stayed at sea. Clara spent 354 hours on record, the longest of the season, and other records give it a pressure of 899 mbar, the lowest of the year; the site's archive holds no pressure for any 1950 storm.

Tropical Storm Delilah affected the Philippines in late November. Typhoon Fran formed on 26 December, peaked at 80 kt on 29 December and struck the northern Philippines, where it killed five people. Fran's tropical stage ended on 1 January 1951, the last date in the season's record.

Sixteen names, including Elsie, Jane, Kezia, Clara and Fran, went into use for the first time in 1950. When the list returned in the following seasons, Helene, Jane, Kezia, Lucretia, Missatha, Ossia, Petie, Salome and Delilah gave way to new names such as Helen, June and Kathy. Salome had gone to a Central Pacific hurricane that never entered the western basin.