1984 Pacific typhoon season

Another June start, a fuller year

Tropical Storm Vernon formed in the South China Sea in early June and moved into Vietnam on 10 June. The site's first tropical-stage observation falls on 8 June. With Sarah in 1983, this was the only known case of two consecutive years opening as late as June.

The Joint Typhoon Warning Center counted 30 tropical cyclones, one fewer than the annual average, and called 1984 the sixth consecutive below-average year. Three stayed depressions, 11 peaked as tropical storms and 16 became typhoons, two of them super typhoons, Vanessa and Bill. The site's archive agrees on 27 tropical storms and 16 typhoons, counts 9 major typhoons and gives an accumulated cyclone energy of 267.7. Against a long-term mean of 25 named storms the season ran above average, a comparison that uses a different baseline from the JTWC's.

Summer storms from Taiwan to Korea

Tropical Storm Wynne passed the southern tip of Taiwan and 70 nautical miles south of Hong Kong in late June. Its enhanced southwest monsoon destroyed 10,000 hectares of Luzon riceland, and three fishermen drowned north of the island, according to the JTWC. Typhoon Alex became the year's first typhoon on 2 July in the archive and crossed Taiwan soon after.

In late July, Typhoon Dinah and Typhoon Ed spun between 1,165 and 1,670 km apart. Ed's outflow briefly weakened Dinah, which then peaked at 125 kt on 29 July and swept past Marcus Island. Ed peaked at 100 kt south of Kyushu, and the JTWC reported that its only known damage was the loss of the freighter Ishlin Glory in the Korea Strait, with one crew member dead and eleven missing.

Typhoon Holly was a huge storm whose strongest winds sat 60 to 150 nautical miles from its center. It dropped 425 mm of rain on Kadena Air Base, where 16,000 air and ferry travelers were stranded, then crossed the Korea Strait. News reports cited by the JTWC listed at least one dead, nine missing and eleven injured in Korea and Kyushu.

Typhoon Ike and the central Philippines

Tropical Storm June crossed Luzon on 29 August, the first named storm to strike the Philippines directly that year. Floods and landslides from June and the southwest monsoon killed at least 67 people and left more than 25,000 families homeless, according to the JTWC. June then came ashore in China 130 nautical miles east of Hong Kong on 30 August.

Typhoon Ike passed 90 nautical miles southwest of Guam as a compact storm, turned west-southwest and reached 125 kt on 1 September. Reconnaissance crews measured 117 kt winds in the eyewall of a 25-nautical-mile eye. Over the next 30 hours Ike crossed the central Philippines, and the JTWC reported 1,026 dead and 1,147 missing and presumed dead, with 200,000 to 480,000 people left homeless. Surigao del Norte on northern Mindanao lost about 1,000 people.

Ike regained strength to 115 kt over the South China Sea, crossed Hainan on 5 September with winds of 70 to 80 kt, and came ashore in China as a tropical storm south-southeast of Nanning early on 6 September. News reports cited at least 13 deaths in China. The storm's total damage came to US$111 million in 1984 dollars, and the name Ike was retired.

Eight October storms

October was the busiest month, with eight storms in the fuller season lists. Tropical Storm Susan struck Vietnam just north of Nha Trang, and initial reports cited by the JTWC gave 33 dead and some 68,000 families homeless. Typhoon Thad reached 120 kt over open water later in the month.

Typhoon Vanessa passed about 165 km south of Guam as a new typhoon, causing about US$1.7 million in damage in 1984 dollars, mostly to bananas. Its pressure then fell about 100 mb in 48 hours, and the archive records a peak of 155 kt and 880 hPa on 26 October, the season's strongest wind and lowest pressure. Vanessa recurved ahead of a cold front without a recorded landfall, but its outer rainbands caused floods in the Philippines that killed 63 people.

Typhoon Warren looped west of Luzon while Vanessa drew it northeast. Its rain set off landslides that killed at least 42 people in Philippine coastal towns, and on 28 October high seas sank the ferry Venus, killing about 36, while the freighter Lorenzo Container VIII went down with eight crew missing.

Agnes follows Ike, and Bill lingers

Typhoon Agnes organized fast on 1 November and struck Samar just south of Borongan on 4 November, about two months after Ike. Its landfall wind was about 140 mph. The JTWC reported severe storm-surge flooding on Samar and Leyte, more than 350,000 people homeless, at least 564 known dead with a final toll expected near 1,000 including the missing, and damage above 600 million pesos, about US$30 million. Later counts give at least 895 dead and 275 missing.

Agnes regained strength over the South China Sea and struck Quy Nhon, Vietnam, near 1100 UTC on 7 November. It killed at least 134 people and destroyed 30,000 homes in Vietnam.

Typhoon Bill ran for 15 warning days, the longest of the year, and reached 130 kt on 14 November before Typhoon Clara's outflow weakened it and sent it looping east of Luzon. Typhoon Doyle closed the season in December, peaking at 125 kt and dissipating over water, with the archive's last tropical-stage observation on 10 December.