1985 Pacific typhoon season

A season in two halves

The Joint Typhoon Warning Center called 1985 almost an average year. It issued 615 warnings on 27 western North Pacific tropical cyclones: one depression, nine tropical storms, 16 typhoons and one super typhoon, against a climatological mean of 27 storms and typhoons. The site archive counts 25 tropical storms and 16 typhoons from US-agency one-minute winds in the tropical stage. JTWC's tally also includes Typhoon Skip, which formed south of Hawaii as Tropical Depression Two-C and crossed the Date Line, a storm the site's western Pacific list does not carry. Other season lists reach 28 named storms and 15 typhoons by adding systems tracked only by the Japan Meteorological Agency or China's weather service and follows ten-minute winds.

JTWC split the year at the end of August. From January to August, 11 of its storms recurved and only three ran straight west-northwest, which JTWC noted was unusual so early in the year. The Philippines escaped almost untouched in that stretch, apart from a glancing blow by Typhoon Hal in June, while no fewer than eight cyclones hit or threatened Okinawa, Korea and Japan. JTWC pointed to one spot about 200 nm south-southeast of Okinawa where four, and nearly five, tracks crossed.

From September to December only two storms recurved. Genesis shifted to the South China Sea west of Palawan and to the waters south and southeast of Guam. Three typhoons and a super typhoon crossed Luzon, three typhoons struck northern Vietnam, and four typhoons and four tropical storms came ashore between southern Vietnam and Hong Kong. The site's accumulated cyclone energy for the year is 218.8.

January storms, a long pause and Typhoon Hal

The archive's first tropical-stage observation falls on 6 January. Tropical Storm Elsie and Tropical Storm Fabian formed on the monsoon trough near Guam and Yap within days of each other. Elsie was the first January storm in the basin in six years, and Fabian damaged crops as it passed the Yap islands. Then the basin went quiet for more than four months. Typhoon Gay became the first typhoon on 23 May east of the Philippines, peaked at 100 kt the next day and turned northeast into a frontal zone without reaching land.

Typhoon Hal passed about 30 nm off the north coast of Luzon on 22 June. JTWC reported 23 deaths there, nine missing and more than $10 million in damage, and heavy rain in eastern Taiwan caused most of the island's casualties. Hal came ashore about 75 nm east-northeast of Hong Kong on 24 June, where landslides followed, and JTWC reported 13 more deaths in mainland China. Hal's toll came to 38 deaths with 14 missing and US$12.3 million in damage in 1985 dollars. JTWC also noted that its steering model could not resolve the narrow ridge that drove Hal west, so its forecast tracks ran consistently north of the storm.

Typhoon Irma, the longest-lived storm in the archive at 498 recorded hours, strengthened the southwest monsoon over Luzon as it passed to the east. More than 28 inches of rain fell, and JTWC reported at least 46 deaths in the Manila area and wider Luzon floods. Irma struck the southeastern tip of Honshu late on 30 June with winds near 65 kt; Japanese police reported three deaths and five missing, and floodwater reached more than 20,000 homes.

Floods along the east China coast

Typhoon Jeff needed 43 warnings, the most of the year in JTWC's table, because it weakened and restrengthened three times. It came ashore in eastern China on 30 July as a typhoon, bringing Shanghai its heaviest rain since 1962. JTWC cited news reports of at least 180 deaths, 1,400 injuries and 1,400 boats lost or damaged in Shanghai and coastal Zhejiang. Later totals give 245 deaths.

Typhoon Mamie peaked at only 70 kt, yet JTWC ranked it among the season's more destructive storms. For two days it skirted 400 nm of coast from Shanghai to the Shandong Peninsula before landfall west of Dairen on 19 August. JTWC reported at least 35 deaths, more than 120,000 houses destroyed or damaged and 800,000 civilians and soldiers mobilized against the floods. Later totals give 44 deaths and US$13.7 million in damage in 1985 dollars.

Typhoon Nelson followed days later. JTWC reported more than $1.5 million in crop damage in the Yaeyama and Miyako islands, four deaths as Nelson skirted northern Taiwan and 48 deaths at landfall in Fujian, with more than 5,000 homes destroyed and 969 fishing boats sunk. Three more days of rain from Nelson's remains killed at least 147 people in Hunan province and drove more than 30,000 from their homes.

Odessa, Pat and Ruby south of Japan

Late August brought a multiple-storm outbreak on the monsoon trough near 20°N. At one point JTWC had five tropical cyclones in warning status at once. Typhoon Odessa and Typhoon Pat rotated around each other south of Japan in a binary interaction. JTWC found that Pat, the larger system, bent Odessa's track more than Odessa bent Pat's, and Pat only turned north and sped up once Odessa had swung around to its north-northwest.

Pat struck Kyushu on 30 August, where Kagoshima recorded a gust of 107 kt, and its extratropical remnant crossed Hokkaido. JTWC reported 23 deaths, more than 180 injuries and about 3,000 damaged homes. Tropical Storm Ruby stayed apart from the pair and tracked directly over metropolitan Tokyo on 31 August. Ruby killed six people. Odessa needed 38 warnings, and shuttle astronauts photographed its compact, symmetric eye.

Typhoon Dot's explosive deepening

Typhoon Dot formed from the monsoon trough over the open western Pacific and became a typhoon on 14 October. Reconnaissance data arrived late, and by the evening of 15 October its central pressure had already plunged to 906 mb. JTWC's 48-hour intensity forecasts issued during the deepening came in 35 to 55 kt too low. The archive places Dot's peak at 150 kt and 895 hPa at 12 UTC on 16 October, the strongest wind and lowest pressure of the season.

Dot weakened before it reached eastern Luzon on 18 October, with a landfall wind of about 130 mph, well below its peak. JTWC credited the storm's small core and a track that kept low-level flow parallel to the mountains with limiting the damage, though it still reported 74 deaths and more than 50,000 people homeless. The typhoon regained strength over the South China Sea, crossed the southern tip of Hainan, where at least two people died and 2,300 houses collapsed, and came ashore in northern Vietnam on 21 October as a tropical storm.

Vietnam's autumn of typhoons

Typhoon Andy crossed the southern tip of Hainan on 29 September and struck Vietnam about 30 nm north of Dong Hoi on 1 October as a minimal typhoon. JTWC received no damage reports and credited extensive preparations, though later totals give 46 deaths in central Vietnam.

Typhoon Cecil did the worst harm of the year. It formed south of the Caroline Islands, crossed the southern Philippines as a disturbance and needed three days to cross the South China Sea, peaking at 100 kt as it passed south of Hainan on 15 October. Cecil came ashore about 40 nm north of Hue late that day. Officials in Binh Tri Thien province called it the worst natural disaster yet in central Vietnam: JTWC reported at least 702 confirmed deaths, 128 missing, 560,000 homeless, 200,000 or more homes destroyed or damaged and damage above $65 million. Cecil caused nearly half of the western Pacific cyclone deaths of 1985.

Typhoon Brendan, listed as Brenda in JTWC's report, looped east of the Philippines and skimmed southern Korea on 5 October with an eye often wider than 60 nm. Korea's disaster relief center reported 14 dead and 43 missing, with the worst damage on Cheju and near Pusan. Typhoon Faye crossed Luzon in late October and peaked at 100 kt near Okinawa. The year closed with Typhoon Hope, which reached 100 kt on 20 December and recurved short of Luzon, and Tropical Storm Irving, which dissipated as it reached the Malay Peninsula.