1965 Pacific typhoon season

A record year on the Guam warning desk

The Joint Typhoon Warning Center on Guam issued 805 warnings in 1965 on 21 typhoons, 13 tropical storms and 6 tropical depressions. It spent 167 calendar days in warning status, two more than the previous record set in 1961, and it carried two or more cyclones at once on 55 days, three at once on 10 of them. The site's archive count of 34 tropical storms and 21 typhoons matches the JTWC totals, because both rest on the same one-minute US warning winds.

Other tallies differ by definition. Other season lists give 35 tropical storms and named systems, a figure that adds systems named by the Philippine Weather Bureau and combines the storm lists of the Chinese, Hong Kong, Japanese and US agencies. The Japan Meteorological Agency averages winds over ten minutes, and the China Meteorological Administration over two, so their peak winds for the same storms run lower than the JTWC one-minute values. The site's accumulated cyclone energy of 425.8 comes from the archive's one-minute winds during each storm's tropical stage.

Eleven super typhoons

The JTWC classed 11 typhoons as super typhoons, with sustained surface winds of 130 kt or more, beating the previous record of eight. The eleven were Dinah, Freda, Jean, Lucy, Mary, Olive, Shirley, Trix, Bess, Carmen and Faye. The site uses a higher threshold for Category 5, 137 kt, so its count of 8 leaves out Shirley and Trix at 130 kt and Faye at 135 kt. 1997 later tied the 1965 total of super typhoons.

Typhoon Dinah was the strongest storm of the year in both the JTWC report and the archive, with 160 kt winds on 17 June northeast of Luzon. Typhoon Bess held the lowest pressure: a reconnaissance aircraft measured 901 mb on 30 September, and the archive lists 900 hPa. Typhoon Carmen came close, with 916 mb observed on 7 October and 914 hPa in the archive. Mary, Lucy and Olive each peaked at 150 kt within two weeks of one another in the second half of August.

Winter storms, then Amy's dash to Tokyo

Typhoon Patsy became the first typhoon of the year on 20 January, reaching 65 kt east of the Philippines before it turned southwest and dissipated over land. Tropical Storm Ruth followed later that month, and short-lived Tropical Storms Sarah, Thelma and Vera formed in February and March. Neither Sarah near southern Vietnam nor Thelma near Palau caused reported damage. Typhoon Wanda reached 65 kt in April, the fourth month of the year with a tropical storm.

Typhoon Amy in May was, in the JTWC's words, one of the fastest moving typhoons ever seen in the western Pacific. It turned north-northeast east of Luzon and by 26 May had 100 kt winds as a small, shallow system about 180 miles southeast of Okinawa. A deepening trough to its west then drove it forward at up to 46 kt. Amy crossed the eastern side of Tokyo Bay early on 27 May with winds near 45 kt, well below its peak, and became extratropical northeast of Tokyo.

Typhoons Babe and Carla formed together at the end of May. Babe made landfall in Taiwan and China and dissipated over land. Carla peaked at 120 kt in the archive on 2 June and then became extratropical at sea.

Typhoon Dinah and the false eye over Taiwan

Dinah grew from a surge in the Southern Hemisphere inflow east of the Philippines and became a typhoon on 13 June. It reached 160 kt on 17 June, then weakened as it turned north and its southerly inflow was cut off. It struck southern Taiwan on 18 June with winds of 140 mph, below the offshore peak, killed 45 people along its path and destroyed 5,000 homes on Taiwan.

As Dinah crossed the central highlands on 18 and 19 June, its cloud eye sheared away from the circulation. Land radar, a TIROS satellite image and an Air Force WB-50 crew all tracked a ring of cloud that looked like an eye, while the aircraft found the true surface wind center about 60 miles to the west. The JTWC called it the first case in which synoptic reports documented both centers at once. Every data source except the aircraft pointed to a track at least 60 miles too far right, and Dinah went on to cross Kyushu as an extratropical storm.

A crowded July and August

Typhoon Freda crossed northern Luzon on 13 July after peaking at 140 kt, and struck Hainan on 15 July before dying out over southern China. Its lowest observed pressure was 922 mb. It caused heavy flooding in China, with an unknown toll, and two deaths in Hong Kong. Typhoon Harriet followed a week later and puzzled forecasters: it moved west-northwest at an average of 18.1 kt, well above the 11 to 14 kt typical for the season, and the JTWC found no clear cause before Harriet dissipated over central China.

Typhoon Jean began as a depression between Truk and Eniwetok on 26 July. Its low-level center kept outrunning the circulation aloft, and Guam recorded a dead calm and thick fog as the surface center passed just north of the island. Jean then interacted with Typhoon Ivy in the Philippine Sea from 29 July and absorbed it on 1 August. Jean peaked at 140 kt on 4 August and came ashore in southwestern Japan the next day, weaker than its peak; it killed 28 people across southern Japan.

Three storms reached 150 kt in quick succession. Typhoon Mary peaked on 17 August and struck eastern Taiwan the next day with winds of about 105 mph, then moved into eastern China. Typhoon Lucy peaked on 18 August south-southeast of Japan and reached Japan as a much weaker typhoon. Typhoon Olive peaked on 29 August near the Mariana Islands and stayed over open water.

Shirley and Trix a week apart in Japan

Typhoons Shirley and Trix both reached 130 kt and followed tracks seldom more than 150 miles apart. Shirley struck southern Japan on 10 September with winds of about 130 mph, below its earlier peak, and its floods and landslides killed 67 people, with 6 missing. Trix reached central Honshu days later, and 98 people died and 9 went missing from the flooding and landslides that followed.

The pair left a mark on the ocean too. The JTWC compared mean sea temperatures from 1 to 5 September with those from 21 to 25 September and found a drop of more than 5°F along their paths, which it attributed mainly to wind mixing of warm surface water with cooler water below. The mixed layer deepened by 50 to 100 feet across much of the area the two storms crossed.

Bess, Carmen and the late-season giants

Typhoon Bess grew into a storm with a circulation more than 600 miles across and winds near 150 kt, moving almost due north near 144°E. Its pressure bottomed out at 900 hPa on 30 September, and it later turned northeast and weakened without striking land. Tropical Storm Agnes, in the South China Sea at the same time, struck Hong Kong; five people were killed.

Typhoon Carmen formed near Eniwetok at the start of October and peaked at 150 kt on 7 October as it passed the Northern Mariana Islands. The storm destroyed the buildings and crops on Agrihan, which forced the island's evacuation. Seven fishing boats that had sheltered near the island capsized as they tried to flee, and 208 people from those vessels went missing. Carmen then raced northeast east of Tokyo and became extratropical.

Typhoon Faye in November drew 49 warnings, more than any other storm that year, and traveled about 4,000 nautical miles. After peaking at 135 kt it accelerated to a forward speed of 65 kt as it became extratropical in late November, the JTWC's best example of the rapid movement that some recurving typhoons show. Tropical Storm Gloria closed the year in December near the Malay Peninsula; it reached southern Thailand as a depression.