1967 Pacific typhoon season

957 warnings and 185 days on alert

The Joint Typhoon Warning Center issued 957 warnings in 1967 on 20 typhoons, 15 tropical storms and 6 tropical depressions, and spent 185 calendar days in warning status. Both figures beat every earlier year. On 62 days it tracked two or more cyclones at once, and on 17 of those, three. The center noted that storms formed farther north than usual, with four typhoons and six tropical storms developing north of 20°N, and that their tracks were scattered and erratic.

The JTWC's 35 storms include Sarah, which formed between 150°W and 140°W and crossed the date line into the western Pacific; the site's archive keeps Sarah's track with the eastern Pacific, so its western Pacific count is 34 tropical storms and 19 typhoons. The Japan Meteorological Agency listed a record 39 storms in its own ten-minute-wind analysis, which includes systems the JTWC never named. The JTWC counted 4 super typhoons with winds of 130 kt or more; the site's Category 5 line of 137 kt keeps Opal, Carla and Emma and leaves out Gilda at 130 kt.

Early storms and Violet over Luzon

Tropical Storm Ruby opened the year west of the Philippines in late January, and Typhoon Sally became the first typhoon on 1 March. Tropical Storm Therese looped near 13.9°N 139.6°E in March and never reached land. Typhoon Violet peaked at 120 kt in early April; it struck northeastern Luzon on 8 April at 115 mph, weaker than its peak, and caused no significant damage.

Typhoon Anita reached 80 kt in late June and came ashore in Guangdong on 30 June as a weakening tropical storm. The storm has been linked to the crash of Thai Airways International Flight 601 at Hong Kong.

Billie's clear eye and Japan's July floods

A JTWC meteorologist flew into Typhoon Billie on 5 July expecting a 30 kt system from its satellite appearance and met winds of 70 to 80 kt instead. The eye held only low, flattened cumulus with no wall cloud, yet temperatures rose by up to 5°C over the center. The report concluded that air sinking from the upper troposphere had warmed the core by compression. Billie's extratropical remnant brought heavy rain to Honshu and Kyushu, killing 347 people.

Typhoon Clara formed from a cold-core low on 6 July and peaked at 100 kt on 10 July. It struck Taiwan the next day at 90 mph, below the peak, and its rain left 69 dead and 32 missing. Tropical Storm Dot, later in July, showed the JTWC a well-documented case of secondary eyes in one circulation and interacted with a nearby depression.

A crowded August

Storms followed one another almost without a break from late July to the end of August. Fran and Iris reached Guangdong, and Tropical Storm Louise came ashore near Shikoku on 21 August. The remnants of Tropical Storm Hope fed an atmospheric river toward interior Alaska that contributed to the 1967 Fairbanks flood.

Typhoon Marge peaked at 125 kt on 27 August, while Typhoon Nora formed close by. The JTWC cited the pair as an example of the Fujiwhara effect, in which two nearby cyclones rotate around each other.

Opal's long track and Sarah at Wake Island

Typhoon Opal formed north of the Marshall Islands on 29 August and reached 155 kt on 3 September far from land. It then wandered south of Japan, bending west and briefly southwest near the Ogasawara Islands, and stayed tropical until 17 September without striking land.

Sarah crossed the date line on 14 September. Its 4,499-mile track was the longest of the year in the JTWC report. Sarah struck Wake Island at peak intensity on 16 September, with winds of 150 mph and a measured 932 mb. It was only the third storm since records began in 1935 to bring typhoon-force winds to the island.

Carla and Emma in the Philippines

Typhoon Carla peaked at 160 kt over the Philippine Sea on 14 October; aircraft measured 901 mb that day, and the archive lists 900 hPa. The JTWC noted that Carla's strongest winds stayed over water, and that it crossed northern Luzon with sustained winds near 100 kt, causing heavy flood damage. Baguio measured 1,216 mm of rain in 24 hours and Taiwan 2,749 mm in 48 hours, and the storm killed 250 people and left 30 missing.

Typhoon Dinah struck Kyushu in late October after peaking at 100 kt, killing 37 people and leaving 10 missing. Typhoon Emma reached 140 kt on 2 November, then weakened before crossing southern Luzon on 3 November. Emma left 300 dead and 60 missing in the Philippines, and the Philippine weather service later retired Emma's local name, Welming.

Typhoon Gilda reached 130 kt on 13 November and Typhoon Harriet 110 kt a week later. Tropical Storm Ivy ended the year on 21 December.