1978 Pacific typhoon season

An average count and a season of surprises

The Joint Typhoon Warning Center called 1978 a near-average year, with 32 significant tropical cyclones in its area. Two of them, numbers 10 and 30, occurred in the central North Pacific. It counted 15 typhoons, only one of which reached its 130 kt super typhoon threshold. JTWC issued 715 warnings on 131 days, and on 16 of those days three cyclones were active at once. The site's archive counts 27 tropical storms, 14 typhoons and 2 major typhoons of 96 kt or more for this page, Faye and Viola, with accumulated cyclone energy of 187.4.

Much of the gap between those figures comes from Typhoon Rita. JTWC first detected Rita as a cloud cluster in the central North Pacific near 175W, and the site files a storm by where its track begins. Rita therefore counts on the 1978 Pacific hurricane season page instead of this one. That is why this page names Viola as the strongest storm, records its lowest pressure as Viola's 910 hPa and counts no Category 5. Other season lists give 31 tropical storms and 16 typhoons, drawing on agency lists with their own definitions.

JTWC described the year as full of surprises. Ten tropical storms and typhoons moved erratically, and Typhoon Trix wandered so much that JTWC called it the most ill-behaved storm of the season. Typhoons Virginia and Mamie were compact enough to count as midget typhoons, and Virginia kept its tropical character as far north as 47N.

Typhoon Olive opens the year

Tropical Storm Nadine formed in January and stayed at sea. Typhoon Olive followed in April. It crossed the Philippines as a tropical storm, strengthened over the South China Sea and became a typhoon on 22 April, then recurved and peaked at 85 kt on 23 April. Olive affected nearly 370,000 people in the Philippines and left 3,500 homeless, and wrecked the ferry MV Leyte off Sibuyan Island. PAGASA later retired its local name, Atang.

June brought three weak storms, Polly, Rose and Shirley, and Shirley reached Vietnam as a tropical storm. The pace picked up in late July, when Trix, Virginia, Wendy and Tropical Storm Agnes were active within days of each other. Agnes made a full loop before striking China, and it killed 3 people in Hong Kong.

Carmen, Elaine and Faye in August

Typhoon Carmen formed from a monsoon disturbance and peaked at 80 kt on 15 August as it passed about 26 nm north of Kadena Air Base on Okinawa. It then sat almost still over the East China Sea for three days before turning north into Korea. JTWC reported that Carmen caused widespread flooding in South Korea, with 21 deaths and $3 million in property damage. Saipan reported flooding in Carmen's formative stage and was declared a disaster area.

Typhoon Elaine crossed Luzon as a depression, looped twice over the South China Sea and reached typhoon strength as it made landfall near the Leizhou Peninsula on 27 August. It caused heavy damage in northern Luzon, and one death and 51 injuries in Hong Kong. Typhoon Faye made a large anticyclonic loop near the Northern Mariana Islands, then deepened explosively, with its pressure falling 18 mb in six hours. It peaked at 105 kt on 2 September, one of only two storms on this page to reach major strength. Faye destroyed 65 homes on Pagan.

Typhoon Rita crosses Luzon

Rita crossed the Date Line early on 16 October, and JTWC issued its first warning soon after. An unusually strong subtropical ridge drove it almost due west at 20 to 23 kt, nearly twice the usual speed. Rita brushed the northern tip of Enewetak as a compact 75 kt typhoon and had strengthened to 150 kt by the time it passed south of Guam. Its closest approach was 85 nm from Naval Air Station Agana, which recorded sustained winds of only 35 kt with gusts to 55 kt. At peak, JTWC estimated 155 kt winds, and aircraft measured 878 mb, 2 mb above Typhoon June's 1975 record.

Rita was still a Category 4 when it came ashore on Luzon. It stayed a typhoon through its passage over the Philippines, and JTWC counted 12 hours over central Luzon. JTWC reported heavy flooding in many towns, especially east and north of Clark Air Base, and many lives lost, but gave no total. Exact figures remain unknown, and PAGASA later retired Rita's local name, Kading. In the South China Sea a surge of the northeast monsoon pushed the weakened storm southwest, and it dissipated off Vietnam. Its 4,142 nm track was the longest of the year.

Lola, Phyllis and Typhoon Viola

Typhoon Lola made landfall on the southeastern tip of Luzon on 26 September and tracked along the island's southern coast, passing 35 nm southwest of Manila before crossing Hainan into northern Vietnam. JTWC reported nineteen deaths. Typhoon Phyllis peaked at 95 kt on 18 October and stayed over open water, and Typhoon Ora reached 85 kt in mid-October.

Typhoon Viola formed in the monsoon trough southeast of Truk and became a tropical storm on 17 November. It reached typhoon strength early on the 20th and intensified quickly, and the archive records its peak of 125 kt and 910 hPa at 06 UTC on 21 November. Viola recurved away from Luzon on 22 November and weakened quickly. Tropical Storm Winnie followed in late November, and the archive's last tropical record for the year falls on 16 December.