1958 Pacific typhoon season

Few storms, almost all of them typhoons

Only two of the archive's 21 tropical storms, Betty and Pamela, failed to reach typhoon strength, and 15 reached 96 kt or more. Seven reached Category 5: Ophelia, Phyllis, Winnie, Grace, Helen, Ida and Nancy. The site's accumulated cyclone energy comes to 435.6, close to a published figure of 445.8 units. The season ran below average in storm numbers and well above average in typhoons.

Other season lists count 23 storms plus nine tropical storms tracked only by the Japan Meteorological Agency, which rated storms with ten-minute winds. The site counts storms when US-agency one-minute winds reach 34 kt during the tropical stage, and 18 of the archive's 39 tracks carry no such estimate. Several of the Japanese-only storms formed in the South China Sea and struck Guangdong, Hainan, Fujian and the Philippines.

Super typhoons in January and May

Typhoon Ophelia grew from a vortex along the Intertropical Convergence Zone far south of Hawaii and became a typhoon on 7 January, the year's first. The same day it struck Jaluit Atoll in the Marshall Islands and killed 14 people. It hit Pohnpei on 10 January and Chuuk on 11 January, damaging US Weather Bureau buildings on both, then strengthened again to a Category 5 peak of 140 kt on 13 January and damaged the weather station on Yap. On 15 January a US Air Force WB-50 crashed on a reconnaissance flight into the storm, killing nine people.

Typhoon Phyllis reached 160 kt on 29 May, the strongest May typhoon on record at the time. It stayed over open water and weakened southeast of Japan in early June.

Winnie in Taiwan and Alice in Tokyo Bay

July brought five typhoons in quick succession. Typhoon Winnie formed east of Luzon, strengthened in two bursts and reached 150 kt on 15 July as it approached eastern Taiwan. It struck the island that day, with sampled winds of 120 kt over land, weakened over the mountains and crossed the Taiwan Strait into southeastern China. It caused 31 casualties and 53 injuries in Taiwan.

Typhoon Alice peaked at 130 kt on 19 July, turned northeast and weakened, then hit southeastern Japan on 22 July. A storm surge of 2.89 m in Tokyo Bay flooded the Koto and Edogawa districts. It destroyed 1,089 houses, flooded 46,243 and killed 26 people, with 64 injured and 14 missing. Typhoon Doris reached the same 130 kt peak later in the month, and in August Typhoon Flossie hit southeastern Japan as a tropical storm on 25 August, leaving 15 dead and 30 missing in Tokyo.

Three Category 5 typhoons in four weeks

Typhoon Grace formed near Micronesia in late August and reached 165 kt on 1 September, with a pressure of 905 hPa. It weakened before striking Zhejiang, where the archive samples 90 kt over land on 4 September, and became extratropical the next day. Typhoon Helen reached 150 kt on 14 September, then weakened steadily and came ashore in southeastern Japan on 17 September at about 105 mph. Helen left 24 dead, 44 missing and 108 injured.

Typhoon Ida formed on 20 September, turned north on 22 September and deepened rapidly. Reconnaissance measured a pressure of 877 hPa, then the lowest recorded in any tropical cyclone, and the archive places that minimum on 24 September with peak one-minute winds of 175 kt six hours later. Other records give a peak of 200 mph, though winds that high are speculative given the quality of measurements at the time.

Ida weakened sharply before it reached southeastern Honshu on 26 September, and its landfall wind was about 80 mph. Its rain did the damage. Floods and more than 1,900 mudslides struck southeastern Japan and washed away two small villages. It killed 888 people, left 381 missing and injured 496, with nearly 500,000 left homeless.

Twin typhoons and a Palau super typhoon

Typhoon Kathy crossed the Philippines in late October and strengthened to 100 kt in the South China Sea. Typhoons Lorna and Marie ran side by side from 23 October to 3 November, both peaking on 1 November, Lorna at 110 kt and Marie at 120 kt. Lorna lasted longest of any storm of the year in the archive.

Typhoon Nancy formed near Palau on 21 November, turned north east of the Philippines and reached Category 5 with a peak of 140 kt on 24 November before curving northeast over open water. Typhoon Olga, the last typhoon of the year, peaked at 125 kt on 5 December, and the archive's final tropical-stage observation falls on 12 December.