1999 Pacific typhoon season

A weak year after La Niña

La Niña carried over from 1998 and kept the basin subdued. By the Japan Meteorological Agency's ten-minute winds, only five storms reached typhoon strength, the fewest on record, and the season's accumulated cyclone energy ranked as the lowest recorded. The site's archive, built on US-agency one-minute winds, gives 10 typhoons and an accumulated cyclone energy of 102, still far below a typical western Pacific year.

The Joint Typhoon Warning Center numbered 33 western Pacific cyclones and named 23 of them. Two names drop out of the site's count of 21 tropical storms. Tanya, a compact August typhoon that formed north of 30°N and never touched land, has no record in the site's storm list for this page, and Jacob, a weak April storm that crossed southern Luzon, lacks US-agency winds in the archive. The center's table of 12 typhoons includes Tanya and Dora, a hurricane that crossed from the eastern Pacific and counts on the site's 1999 Pacific hurricane season page; without those two it matches the site's 10.

Two scales often disagreed on the same storm. The agency reports rated Kate, Virgil, Sam and York as typhoons on one-minute winds, while the Japan Meteorological Agency kept them at tropical storm or severe tropical storm strength. It also upgraded two systems the warning center held as depressions, 07W in July and 10W off Shanwei. The site follows the one-minute scale.

Early storms and Typhoon Maggie

The first system, an unnamed tropical storm in the site's list that the warning center called Hilda, formed off northwestern Borneo on 3 January. Its rain set off floods and landslides in Sabah that killed five people and damaged roads worth about $1.3 million in 1999 US dollars. Tropical Storm Iris followed in February and fell apart east of Luzon.

Typhoon Kate became the season's first typhoon on 26 April, peaking at 75 kt as it passed 9 km north of Iwo Jima. At the same time Typhoon Leo formed west of Manila, looped off the Vietnamese coast and then intensified quickly to 110 kt in the archive before shear tore it apart. Leo reached China as a depression on 2 May, but its waves sank a ship south of Hong Kong, and only 7 of the 21 people aboard were rescued.

Typhoon Maggie formed east of the Philippines on 1 June and peaked at 105 kt on 5 June before entering the Luzon Strait. It struck southeastern China about 55 nm east-northeast of Hong Kong on 6 June with winds near 80 kt, then slid along the coast and passed 5 km from the Hong Kong Observatory. The warning center recorded 3 landslide deaths in the Philippines, 1 death and 5 missing in Taiwan, and $4.8 million in crop damage in southern China. Guangdong reported four deaths and more than 3,000 damaged homes.

Tropical Storm Neil and Typhoon Olga in Korea

Late July brought two storms to the Korean Peninsula within a week. Tropical Storm Neil came ashore near Suncheon on 27 July, recurved over the Yellow Sea and struck again southwest of Seoul the next day. A fishing boat capsized off the Korean coast with its crew of eight, and flash floods as Neil broke up killed at least seven more people and left 7,000 homeless.

Typhoon Olga crossed Okinawa on 1 August, reached its 80 kt peak northwest of the island, then ran up the west coast of South Korea and made its final landfall in North Korea on 3 August as a 55 kt tropical storm. It arrived only days after frontal rains had soaked the region. The warning center cited Reuters reports of 64 deaths in South and North Korea from rain and landslides. Other counts give 64 deaths in South Korea alone and a further 42 in North Korea from Red Cross reports, plus 160 deaths from rain over Luzon while Olga was still far offshore.

Hong Kong under Sam, York and Cam

August was the busiest month, with Tropical Storm Paul, Tropical Storm Rachel, Typhoon Sam, Tanya, Typhoon Virgil and Dora from the eastern Pacific all active. Typhoon Sam crossed northern Luzon, killing seven people there, and made landfall about 10 nm northeast of Hong Kong on 22 August with 75 kt winds. More than 616 mm of rain fell, making Sam the wettest tropical cyclone in the Hong Kong Observatory's records and beating a mark from 1926. During the storm a China Airlines jet crashed on landing at Hong Kong International Airport, killing three people. The warning center listed 17 deaths in China.

Typhoon York stalled over the South China Sea, peaked at 70 kt and came ashore over Lantau Island on 16 September. The Observatory raised its highest signal, No. 10, for the first time since 1983 and kept it up for 11 hours, the longest on record. Waglan Island measured a record gust of 234 km/h. The Observatory reported two deaths and more than 500 injuries in Hong Kong, and 15 more people died in Guangdong. Earlier, as a disturbance crossing northern Luzon, the system had caused landslides that killed 18 people.

Tropical Storm Cam turned abruptly west into Hong Kong late in September. It brought the fifth No. 8 signal of the year, a frequency the territory had not seen since 1964, and one death on a ship off Stonecutters Island.

Typhoon Bart, the season's one super typhoon

Typhoon Bart grew from a weak circulation east of Taiwan on 17 September, held back at first by poor outflow beneath an upper-level low. As that low filled, Bart strengthened at a steady pace, drifted north and reached 140 kt on 22 September, passing about 40 nm west of Okinawa. The archive also gives it the season's lowest pressure, 930 hPa. The warning center's own table lists 898 mb.

Bart weakened slowly on its way to Kyushu, which it struck on 23 September with winds of about 185 km/h, then crossed western Honshu and raced northeast through the Sea of Japan. Kadena Air Base measured more than 28 inches of rain in 48 hours. The Associated Press and the Japan Meteorological Agency reported 30 deaths and 1,314 injuries across Japan, with more than 800,000 homes losing power and 18,498 flooded. Kumamoto Prefecture was hit hardest, and a crane collapse at a Hiroshima shipyard killed three workers.

Floods from Fujian to Vietnam

Tropical Storm Wendy was a weak system, but it came ashore east of Hong Kong on 3 September and stalled rain over southern China for a week. Up to 500 mm fell in northern Jiangxi and southern Zhejiang, at least 118 people died, and direct damage passed $275 million in 1999 US dollars. Tropical Storm Zia crossed Kyushu and Honshu in mid-September, and its rain killed nine people in Japan.

Typhoon Dan reached 110 kt in early October and brushed northern Luzon, weakened to 80 kt over the South China Sea, and then regained strength before striking near Xiamen on 9 October. News reports cited by the warning center put Dan's toll in Fujian at 30 deaths and $240 million in damage, and called it Xiamen's worst typhoon in 46 years. Dan also burst dikes in southern Taiwan that the Chi-Chi earthquake had weakened a month earlier.

Tropical Storm Eve reached the coast southeast of Da Nang on 19 October, the first of several systems whose rain flooded central Vietnam that autumn. Tropical Storm Frankie stalled over the Sibuyan Sea in November. Typhoon Gloria spun up to 65 kt east of Okinawa on 15 November while racing northeast at up to 48 kt, just before it became extratropical, and was the last typhoon to carry an English name in the basin. Three December depressions ended the year, the last reaching Vietnam on 16 December. From 2000 the Japan Meteorological Agency took over naming western Pacific storms.