1959 Pacific typhoon season

The first year of the Joint Typhoon Warning Center

On 1 May 1959 the US Pacific Command renamed Fleet Weather Central on Guam as Fleet Weather Central/Joint Typhoon Warning Center. The new center took over warnings to US government agencies for tropical cyclones west of 180 degrees, set reconnaissance priorities and began post-season analysis. Its 1959 report was the first annual typhoon report the Guam center published. Before the merger, separate Air Force and Navy units had issued warnings that were sometimes uncoordinated because of communication problems.

Aircraft carried the warning system. The 54th Weather Reconnaissance Squadron made 98 percent of the fixes the center requested, penetrating typhoons at the 700 mb level. Thirteen of the 17 typhoons the center counted were first detected around the Trust Territory islands, where surface and upper-air reports from island stations gave early signs of development. The center also tested the Malone method, an objective technique built on Atlantic hurricane climatology, and found its 24-hour forecasts 30 percent less accurate than its own warnings. The lack of upper-air data between Guam, Iwo Jima, Taiwan and Clark Air Base made recurvature the hardest call.

Sixty-five disturbances, 17 typhoons

The JTWC report logged 65 tropical disturbances west of 140°W, gave 59 of them cyclone numbers and named 33. It counted 17 typhoons, below the yearly average of 19 it cited, plus nine named systems that never exceeded tropical-storm strength. The site counts 22 tropical storms and 16 typhoons from US-agency one-minute winds during the tropical stage. The JTWC's 17 includes Patsy, a storm that formed near the date line and moved back and forth across it, which does not appear among the archive's western Pacific typhoons. Other season lists give 18 typhoons.

The JTWC described the year's typhoons as larger than usual. Joan, Sarah and Vera each grew large enough to dominate the western Pacific circulation, while only Billie, Iris, Patsy and Amy stayed small. The site's accumulated cyclone energy for the year reached 373.7. Tropical disturbances were present on 177 days, against a 50-year average of 147, with 26 active days in August and 30 in September.

Floods in Taiwan and Japan in high summer

Tropical Storms Ruby and Sally formed near Yap and the Marshall Islands in late February and March. Typhoon Tilda became the year's first typhoon on 15 April and peaked at 125 kt on 19 April west of Guam, then stalled and died at sea without casualties. The JTWC recorded its longest gap between disturbances from 11 May to 26 June.

Typhoon Billie crossed northeastern Taiwan in mid-July after peaking at 90 kt in the archive. The JTWC report lists one death and about $500,000 in property damage in eastern Taiwan, with a third of Taipei flooded and 10,000 people homeless there. Rain on the storm's fringes over southern Japan killed 45 people and destroyed, damaged or flooded more than 65,000 homes. A stampede of about 70,000 people from a stadium in Busan, set off by storms tied to Billie, caused 68 indirect deaths.

Typhoon Ellen, one of two storms the JTWC traced to broken polar troughs, stalled off Kyushu for about 46 hours and dropped up to 35 inches of rain on mountain areas. The JTWC lists at least 11 deaths in southern Japan. Rain linked to Ellen also caused Taiwan's Great August 7 Flood, which killed nearly 700 people. Days later Typhoon Georgia reached 110 kt and crossed central Japan, where the JTWC report records 246 dead or missing and 1,031 injured. The report puts combined damage from Ellen and Georgia at about $50 million in 1959 US dollars.

Typhoon Iris reached 90 kt and came ashore in Fujian. Rough seas off the Philippines sank at least two ships, one of them an inter-island vessel off Palawan with more than 100 aboard and only 11 survivors. China reported 720 people killed and 996 missing in Fujian, and a NOAA estimate puts the toll as high as 2,334.

Joan over Taiwan and Sarah in Korea

Typhoon Joan formed northeast of Guam and deepened to 885 hPa on 29 August, the lowest pressure in the site's 1959 archive, with peak one-minute winds of 170 kt six hours later. Reconnaissance observers estimated 200 kt, and the JTWC report lists a minimum of 891 mb. The archive samples 148 kt with the center over Taiwan that afternoon, still Category 5. The island's mountains weakened Joan before it reached mainland China on 30 August. The JTWC report lists at least 11 deaths, 3,308 houses destroyed and $3 million in crop damage in Taiwan, and China reported 3 dead and 57 injured.

Typhoon Louise struck Taiwan near Hualien in early September, leaving 6 dead, 167 injured and 6,100 homeless according to the JTWC. Typhoon Sarah formed near Guam, reached 165 kt on 15 September and crossed Miyako-jima, where the JTWC lists 7 deaths, 88 injuries, more than 6,000 homes destroyed and about $2 million in damage. Sarah then struck the southeastern tip of Korea near Busan. The JTWC called it Korea's worst typhoon in 50 years, with 669 dead, 259 missing and 782,126 homeless, and reported property losses of more than $100 million in 1959 US dollars.

Typhoon Vera and the Ise Bay disaster

Typhoon Vera formed between Guam and Chuuk on 20 September and deepened quickly to 895 hPa, with peak one-minute winds of 165 kt on 23 September. The JTWC report cites reconnaissance estimates of 175 kt and a pressure of 896 mb. Vera curved north and came ashore near Shionomisaki on Honshu on 26 September, and the archive samples 125 kt over land at 09:00 UTC. It crossed into the Sea of Japan, turned east across Honshu again and became extratropical on 27 September.

Storm surge overran flood defenses around Ise Bay. In less than three hours Nagoya's harbor stopped working, 300 people died at Handa as waves destroyed more than 250 homes, and floodwater cut off Kuwana. The Australian ship Changsha ran aground at Yokkaichi. Dysentery spread through flooded southern Nagoya afterward. Forecasters anticipated Vera's track, but limited telecommunications and a lack of urgency in Japanese media held back evacuation.

The JTWC report, citing Japan's national police at the time, lists 4,580 confirmed dead, 658 missing, 32,285 injured and 1,596,855 homeless, with damage above $261 million. Later estimates give more than 5,000 deaths, almost 39,000 injured and damage of $600 million in 1959 US dollars.

Okinawa twice, then the Philippines at Christmas

Typhoon Charlotte reached 145 kt on 13 October and passed near Okinawa on 16 October. The JTWC report lists 46 dead, 24 injured and 1,038 homeless on the island, 275 homes destroyed and three-quarters of the rice crop ruined by 24 inches of rain. Typhoon Dinah peaked at 150 kt on 17 October and turned northeast before reaching Japan. Typhoon Emma grazed Okinawa on 12 November, killing at least 2 people according to the JTWC, while Typhoon Freda left 58 people dead, missing or injured in the Philippines.

Typhoon Gilda reached 150 kt on 17 December and struck Samar early the next day. The JTWC report lists at least 23 dead, some 60,000 homeless and property damage above $1.5 million in the central Philippines. Typhoon Harriet followed, peaking at 130 kt on 30 December and crossing Catanduanes on 31 December, where Coast Guard staff at the Loran station logged a falling barometer until it broke and the building's roof blew away. The JTWC lists at least five deaths and more than 12,000 homeless in southeastern Luzon. Harriet's last tropical-stage observation, on 2 January 1960, closes the season in the archive.