1960 Pacific typhoon season

Eight August typhoons and a typhoon-free September

The Joint Typhoon Warning Center on Guam counted 19 typhoons and 8 tropical storms in 1960, plus 3 systems that only received depression warnings. Those 27 storms match the site's archive count, which uses one-minute winds during the tropical stage. Other season lists reach 30 storms because they add systems tracked only by the China Meteorological Administration and the Japan Meteorological Agency, whose ten-minute winds and own warnings produce a slightly different list. The archive puts the season's accumulated cyclone energy at 319.1.

The JTWC singled out the monthly spread as the year's oddest feature. August produced 8 typhoons, a total its long-period records matched only in 1940 and 1942 since 1884, while September produced none, which had happened only in 1885 and 1904. The center issued 776 warnings on 157 days, up from 583 warnings in 1959.

The JTWC also judged the typhoons of 1960 weak to moderate next to 1959, when Joan and Vera had central pressures of 891 and 896 mb. It linked the difference to the upper-level Pacific high, which in 1960 split into several small cells at 200 to 300 mb, and it flagged that idea for further research. The lowest pressure its reconnaissance aircraft reported was 918 mb, in both Typhoon Trix and Typhoon Della. The archive's merged best track gives a lower minimum of 910 hPa for Shirley.

Karen, Lucille and Mary open the year

Two weak systems, Ivy in late January and Jean in March, came and went without reaching storm strength in the archive's winds. Typhoon Karen formed in late April and crossed the southern Philippines before becoming a typhoon in the South China Sea on 24 April. The JTWC called it the smallest typhoon of the year, with 50 kt winds reaching only 30 miles from the center. It reported at least 56 people dead in the Philippines, 7,000 homeless and about $2 million in crop and property damage.

Tropical Storm Lucille never exceeded 45 kt in the archive, yet it caused one of the year's worst disasters. Its developing circulation soaked Luzon between 27 and 29 May, and the JTWC reported flash floods that killed nearly 300 people in the Manila area. Other estimates run from 300 to 500 deaths, including at least 80 children, with floodwater up to 4.6 m deep. Lucille and Ophelia later became the first names removed from the basin's naming list, Lucille for the loss of life in the Philippines.

Typhoon Mary, known in Hong Kong as Bloody Mary, passed through the colony on 8 and 9 June. The JTWC called it the worst typhoon there in 23 years, with gusts to 105 kt, 14.12 inches of rain in 24 hours and landslides that tore through the hillside refugee shacks. It reported 18,200 people homeless and more than 100 dead, missing or injured, and more than 50 fishing vessels sunk in Hong Kong's anchorages. Four fishermen drowned off Taiwan. The rain did refill the colony's reservoirs to about two thirds of capacity, and other accounts attribute about 1,600 more deaths to landslides from the remnants.

Typhoon Olive floods Manila

Typhoon Olive formed east of the Philippines on 23 June and peaked at 125 kt in the archive on 25 June, less than two days later. It had weakened to about 125 mph when it reached eastern Luzon, then crossed the islands, regained typhoon strength in the South China Sea and struck southern China on 29 June at about 80 mph.

Olive passed within 12 miles of Manila. The JTWC report describes water 6 to 8 ft deep in the city's low-lying districts, nearly impassable roads and 14.96 inches of rain in 24 hours at Cubi Point. It counted 104 deaths in the Philippines, more than 500 people missing, most of them fishermen, and about 60,000 homeless in southeastern Luzon, with over 80 percent of crops in southern and central Luzon destroyed. Other counts give a higher toll of 404 deaths. Heavy rain in Hong Kong and southern China caused crop losses but no reported deaths.

Shirley and Trix hit Taiwan a week apart

Typhoon Shirley became a storm east of northern Luzon on 29 July and reached typhoon strength the next day. The archive places its 135 kt peak and 910 hPa minimum at 00 UTC on 31 July, the highest winds of the season, matched later only by Ophelia. The JTWC reported an eye 7 to 12 miles wide. As Shirley approached Taiwan, a secondary low formed in a trough at the island's southern tip, which the center tied to the mountains reshaping the typhoon's winds.

Shirley passed almost directly over Taipei with maximum sustained winds of 125 kt, according to the JTWC, below its peak over open water. The mountains around the city blunted the wind, but 11.8 inches of rain fell in 12 hours near Taichung and landslides knocked out the two main hydroelectric plants at Sun Moon Lake. The JTWC reported 104 deaths in Taiwan, 9,890 houses destroyed or damaged and 50,194 people homeless, plus two deaths on Miyako Jima in the Ryukyus. Crop losses stayed small because farmers had already harvested the first rice crop.

Typhoon Trix peaked at 125 kt in the archive on 6 August and made an abrupt turn that trapped the Coast Guard cutter Ironwood, which had sailed southwest from Okinawa to avoid it. The crew fought 40 ft seas for 48 hours with a flooded engine room before an Army tug reached them. Trix then crossed northern Taiwan about 30 miles north of Taipei. The JTWC reported 4 deaths, about 400 homes destroyed or damaged and 105 small trawlers sunk on an island still flooded from Shirley.

Japan and Korea in the August rush

The August typhoons often ran side by side. When warnings went out on Typhoon Carmen, the JTWC was also tracking Bess, Della and Elaine. Typhoon Virginia crossed Shikoku with 80 kt winds reported there, killing 2 people and injuring 1, and Japanese farmers welcomed its rain on parched fields. Typhoon Wendy formed inside Virginia's circulation, an unusual origin the JTWC noted because Wendy sat under an upper-level cyclone. It had weakened to a tropical storm before landfall, and the JTWC reported no significant damage, though other counts give 28 deaths in Japan's Kinki and Chubu regions.

Typhoon Carmen was about 800 miles across. On 20 August the radar at Kadena Air Base on Okinawa showed an eye roughly 200 miles in diameter, which the JTWC called probably one of the largest ever reported, and Okinawa sat inside that eye for over 24 hours. Carmen had weakened to a tropical storm when it passed 20 miles west of Seoul, carrying 45 kt winds. Along the Korean coast it flooded 1,530 houses in Pusan, and the JTWC reported 24 deaths and more than $2 million in property damage.

Typhoon Della looped in the open Pacific and then struck southern Japan. The JTWC reported 55 deaths, most of them in a landslide at Nishinomiya that trapped 78 workmen building a toll road, of whom 40 were rescued. Around 350 houses were damaged or destroyed and 26,000 flooded on Honshu and Shikoku, where one town reported 17 inches of rain. Typhoon Elaine took an erratic track across Taiwan, leaving at least 5 dead and 3 missing, and Typhoon Bess turned northeast just short of Tokyo Bay, dropping more than 8.5 inches of rain at Choshi. Typhoon Faye, a 125 kt storm, stayed over open water.

Kit and Lola strike Luzon at harvest time

After a September with only tropical storms, Typhoon Kit crossed the Philippines in early October with 80 kt winds, according to the JTWC. The worst damage fell south of Manila in the Bicol region, at the height of the rice harvest. The JTWC reported 149 deaths in the Philippines and as many people missing, most of them fishermen, with 75,000 families homeless and about $3 million in damage. Kit went on to flatten two thirds of the rice on Hainan Island, according to Chinese radio reports.

Typhoon Lola reached central Luzon about a week later, approaching from the northeast, a path the JTWC called rare. Much of Manila stood under 3 ft of water, and the center reported 58 deaths, 19 more lost when a fishing vessel sank as Lola approached, and $15 million in property and crop damage.

Mamie, Nina and Ophelia close the year

Typhoon Mamie was the largest of the season. By its first warning the depression covered an area more than 1,300 miles across, and the JTWC reported 50 kt winds extending 350 miles from the center. Mamie peaked at 115 kt, gusted to 90 kt on Iwo Jima and whipped up 18 to 20 ft waves near Tokyo Bay. Typhoon Nina, peaking at 110 kt, averaged 19 kt over its warning life and reached 56 kt as it paralleled Japan on 27 October.

Typhoon Ophelia drifted as a weak depression for about a week after forming on 21 November, then strengthened over the Caroline Islands and peaked at 135 kt on 1 December. It crossed Ulithi with winds over 125 kt, killing two children, injuring four people and covering the atoll with two feet of water, according to the JTWC. Near Japan it later moved at an average of 53 kt over 24 hours. The name was retired for its unusually long track. Typhoon Phyllis, a 105 kt December storm, turned east short of Luzon and ended the season on 20 December.

One unnamed September system left the region altogether. It crossed 100°E into the Bay of Bengal and became Cyclone 10B, which killed an estimated 3,000 people in East Pakistan, now Bangladesh.