1952 Pacific typhoon season

A season with five Category 5 typhoons

The site's archive counts 28 tropical storms for 1952, 20 of them typhoons and 11 of them at 96 kt or more. Olive, Wilma and Hester each peaked at 160 kt, and Agnes and Della at 150 kt. Accumulated cyclone energy reached 314. Typhoon Bess holds the archive's lowest pressure, 915 hPa, in mid-November, and Typhoon Karen spent the longest time on record.

Other tallies list 29 tropical storms and 20 typhoons. The Fleet Weather Center on Guam named storms across the whole basin that year, and the one-storm gap reflects different definitions: the site counts only storms whose US-agency one-minute winds reached 34 kt during their tropical stage, and seven systems in the archive have no wind estimate at all. Pressures also differ by source. Other records give Wilma 893 mbar, and the Japan Meteorological Agency gives Hester 905 hPa, while the archive's US-agency pressures for those storms are 930 and 950 hPa.

June storms reach Hong Kong and Japan

The first system formed on 3 May and left no wind estimate in the archive. Typhoon Charlotte formed near the Philippines in June, peaked at 85 kt on 12 June and came ashore near Hong Kong as a minimal typhoon, below that peak. Typhoon Dinah struck west of the Kanto region of Japan on 23 June; it killed 65 people and left 70 missing.

Typhoon Emma reached 110 kt on 1 July and went on to hit the Philippines and southern China, including Hainan. Tropical Storm Freda weakened to a depression before it reached Kyushu in mid-July. Typhoon Harriet peaked at 100 kt late in the month. August and early September brought a run of smaller typhoons, among them Karen, Lois, Mary and Nona, none stronger than 85 kt in the archive.

Typhoon Olive and Wake Island

Olive began as a tropical wave near 169°W in early September and became a tropical storm on 15 September, heading west-northwest toward Wake Island. It had strengthened into a typhoon by the time it reached the island, where observers measured sustained winds of about 120 mph and gusts to 142 mph, and aircraft found a central pressure of 945 mbar. Olive kept strengthening over open ocean, reaching Category 5 on 17 September and a peak of 160 kt eighteen hours later, well after it passed Wake.

About 750 people rode out the storm in World War II bunkers on Wake. Olive destroyed about 85 percent of the island's structures, including every home, the hotel, the chapel and the Coast Guard LORAN station. Four people were injured and no one died. Repairs cost about $1.6 million in 1952 dollars, and the facilities were fully restored in 1953.

Typhoon Trix, the year's deadliest storm

Trix formed near Micronesia in mid-October and peaked at 120 kt on 20 October as it approached the Philippines. It weakened slightly before coming ashore in the Bicol Region on 21 October, crossed the central islands, restrengthened over the South China Sea and reached Vietnam near Quang Ngai as a tropical storm on 25 October.

Trix killed more than 1,400 people: 995 in the Philippines and at least 405 in Indochina. Southern Luzon, Samar and Leyte took the worst of it, with Legazpi and Tabaco devastated, half of Leyte's rice crop lost and about 500,000 people left homeless. Damage in the Philippines reached an estimated $60 million, and Filipinos called it the worst typhoon in living memory. In Vietnam a tornado near Saigon killed 10 people.

Typhoon Vae overlapped with Trix, peaking at 65 kt on 20 October. After landfall it weakened to a depression and its remnants crossed Cambodia and Thailand into the Andaman Sea.

Wilma, Agnes and Della in quick succession

Typhoon Wilma formed on 21 October near 5.5°N and peaked at 160 kt on 26 October east of the Philippines. It had weakened to about 80 kt by the time its center crossed the islands, then reached Vietnam as a tropical storm and dissipated on 31 October.

Typhoon Agnes followed days behind, passing through the Marianas region and peaking at 150 kt on 3 November, with its lowest pressure of 920 hPa recorded the day before. It curved north and northeast short of the Ryukyus and weakened south of Japan with little effect on land. Typhoon Bess reached 100 kt and the season's lowest archived pressure in mid-November, and Typhoon Carmen peaked at 110 kt a few days later.

Typhoon Della moved west across the Philippine Sea from 20 November, reaching 100 kt east of Luzon by 24 November. The archive places Della's center over land at 100 kt early on 25 November and its peak of 150 kt twelve hours later. Della then weakened as it moved north between Luzon and Taiwan into the Taiwan Strait region.

Gloria and Hester run into 1953

Tropical Storms Elaine and Faye came and went in the first half of December. Typhoon Gloria peaked at 130 kt on 22 December. Typhoon Hester formed south of Ebeye in the Marshall Islands on 27 December, became a typhoon the next day and peaked at 160 kt on 31 December as it passed south and west of Guam.

Hester's northwest quadrant crossed Enewetak, where the United States Navy estimated winds near 70 mph and waves up to 30 ft left most of the atoll underwater. It damaged the hospital, mess halls and the Coast Guard LORAN station and injured 18 people. Guam opened underground shelters, evacuated hospitals and closed offices; waves reached 200 ft inland on the south side of the island, washing out a new section of highway near the Ylig River and damaging crops. Hester weakened to a tropical storm by 4 January 1953, the last day of the season in the archive.