1987 Pacific typhoon season

Few storms, six super typhoons

The Joint Typhoon Warning Center named three features of 1987: a low total of 25 tropical cyclones, a large number of super typhoons, six, and four midget typhoons. Its 25 systems split into six super typhoons, 12 typhoons, six tropical storms and one depression, below its climatological mean of 30.7. That list includes Typhoon Peke, which crossed from the central Pacific and which the site's western Pacific list does not carry.

The site archive counts 22 tropical storms, 16 typhoons and 10 major typhoons from US-agency one-minute winds in the tropical stage. Its four Category 5 storms, Betty, Holly, Lynn and Nina, fall short of JTWC's six super typhoons because JTWC set its super typhoon threshold at 130 kt, while Category 5 starts at 137 kt; Thelma and Dinah peaked at exactly 130 kt. Other season lists give 23 named storms and 17 typhoons. The site's accumulated cyclone energy for the year is 312.1.

The last reconnaissance flights

JTWC's commander called 1987 the start of a new era in typhoon forecasting. In the middle of the season the center moved from aircraft reconnaissance to a system based mostly on satellites, and it still recorded the lowest track errors in its history. The last scheduled western North Pacific reconnaissance flight went into Typhoon Cary on 15 August. Guam also received the first release of JTWC's automated forecasting hardware and software that year.

Orchid, Thelma and a July cluster

Typhoon Orchid, a midget typhoon, became the first typhoon of the year on 10 January and passed directly over Ulithi with 100 kt winds and extensive damage. No one died there, and parts of Micronesia received a federal disaster declaration. Tropical Storm Percy was the only April storm, and Tropical Storm Ruth crossed onto the south China coast in June. Media reports put Ruth's toll at seven deaths in Guangdong and three in Guangxi, with more than 45,000 houses collapsed in Guangdong.

Typhoon Thelma peaked at 130 kt in July and kept tracking west longer than JTWC's dynamic model expected before turning sharply north about 300 nm east of northern Luzon. Heavy rain and high seas still killed at least 12 people there. Thelma then struck South Korea. News reports cited by JTWC counted at least 123 deaths and 212 missing, most of the missing seamen and fishermen caught offshore, and officials estimated losses above $124 million. Later totals give 138 deaths.

Typhoon Wynne, another midget, held a steady 294-degree heading for four days and kept a visible eye for six, peaking at 125 kt in JTWC's table. It crossed Alamagan in the northern Marianas, where it destroyed every structure but caused no serious injuries or deaths. Typhoon Alex brushed eastern Taiwan and came ashore near Wenzhou; its remnants fed a band of rain that dropped 12 inches on Korea in 24 hours and caused deadly flooding.

Betty's record pressure and Dinah at Okinawa

Typhoon Betty deepened explosively on its way to the central Philippines. JTWC's 891 mb estimate was the lowest reported central pressure of the year up to that time, and the archive gives Betty 140 kt and 890 hPa on 11 August, the season's lowest pressure. The eye crossed the central islands on 12 August, well after the peak. JTWC reported 20 deaths and 60,000 homeless in the Philippines; later totals give 92 deaths along the full path through Vietnam and Thailand.

Typhoon Dinah was the most destructive typhoon to hit Okinawa and the southern islands of Japan in 20 years, according to JTWC. On Okinawa it produced sustained winds of 63 kt with gusts to 106 kt, killed one person and caused more than $1.3 million in damage to US military facilities, in 1987 dollars. Across Japan, Dinah killed eight people. Typhoon Cary, which recorded 420 hours in the archive, the longest track of the year, crossed the Philippines and struck northern Vietnam.

Three storms from one monsoon trough

In early September one active monsoon trough produced Typhoon Freda, Typhoon Gerald and Typhoon Holly. Freda covered less than 10 degrees of longitude but 25 degrees of latitude, and its 13-day life and 50 warnings set the season's highs; Guam measured 635 mm of rain during its second pass. Gerald matured without detaching from the trough and carried an unusually large eye. It struck southeast China as a tropical storm on 10 September, where it caused 127 deaths and US$131 million in damage in 1987 dollars from mudslides and flooding.

Holly deepened for 36 hours to 140 kt on 9 September, then recurved far east of Japan without touching land. Typhoon Ian formed later in the month northeast of Guam and restricted the outflow of Tropical Storm June, while Peke became the first hurricane in twenty years to cross from the central North Pacific.

Lynn's Taipei flood and Nina's strike on Luzon

Typhoon Lynn reached 140 kt on 20 October and appeared headed for Guam until a late jog north spared the island; Saipan still recorded gusts to 65 kt. Lynn's center passed 110 nm southwest of Taiwan, but the pressure gradient between the storm and a strong high over China drove wind and rain across the north of the island. News services reported 68 inches of rain on Taipei from 24 to 26 October. JTWC called it Taiwan's worst flooding in 40 years, with 42 deaths and 18 missing, among them nine children swept away by high waves at Hengchun.

Typhoon Nina killed five people on Truk, then intensified explosively in the Philippine Sea to 145 kt, the season's highest wind, on 25 November, shortly before landfall on southern Luzon. JTWC estimated 658 deaths there and called Nina the most destructive typhoon to hit the Philippines in 20 years. Lynn caused 1,036 casualties along its path and crop damage of 1.12 billion Philippine pesos in 1987 pesos.

Two more deadly landfalls closed the year. Tropical Storm Maury came ashore near Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam, where 86 people died, and Typhoon Phyllis, the fourth midget typhoon, deepened explosively to 100 kt before striking Samar in mid-December. JTWC reported ten deaths and 13 missing when a ferry sank during Phyllis.