2000 Pacific typhoon season

A slightly below-average year

By the number of storms, 2000 fell a little short of the long-term norm. The archive records 25 tropical storms and 14 typhoons, against JTWC averages for 1960 to 2000 of about 27.6 tropical storms and typhoons and 17.6 typhoons a year. Tropical Storm Risk's 1969 to 1999 averages, 26.4 tropical storms, 16.1 typhoons and 7.9 intense typhoons, tell a similar story. The strong storms still added up: seven reached major typhoon strength of 96 kt or more, and the season's accumulated cyclone energy came to 243.8.

Forecasts made before the season pointed in different directions. Tropical Storm Risk's January outlook called for an active year of about 32 tropical storms, but its late-May update cut that to about 25, close to what the season delivered.

A late start and a crowded summer

No tropical storm formed before May. Typhoon Damrey developed near Palau at the start of the month and became the first tropical storm, typhoon and super typhoon of the year, and Tropical Storm Longwang followed in mid-May as it crossed the northern Philippines. June then passed without a single storm in JTWC's warnings.

July changed that. Typhoon Kirogi and Typhoon Kai-Tak formed within a day of each other on opposite sides of the Philippines, and Tropical Storms Tembin and Bolaven followed later in the month. JTWC warned on eight cyclones in July and nine in August, the busiest month, when Typhoon Jelawat, Typhoon Ewiniar, Typhoon Bilis and Typhoon Prapiroon all developed. Tropical Storm Wene formed just west of the International Date Line in mid-August and moved into the central Pacific.

September began with several storms at once. Typhoon Saomai, Typhoon Wukong and Tropical Storm Bopha were all active in the first days of the month, and Saomai's circulation pulled the weaker Bopha far to the south. Typhoon Sonamu and Typhoon Shanshan followed in mid-September, after which activity slowed. October brought Typhoon Yagi, which made a loop near Okinawa, and Typhoon Xangsane, while Typhoon Bebinca and Tropical Storm Rumbia crossed the Philippines in November and early December. Typhoon Soulik formed east of the Philippines on December 28 and lasted until January 5, 2001.

Three Category 5 typhoons

Typhoon Damrey was the season's most intense storm by wind. Its small, symmetrical circulation reached one-minute winds of 155 kt on May 9, and the archive records a minimum pressure of 930 hPa. JTWC ranked it the second most intense May cyclone in its records. Damrey's compact core also made it fragile: vertical wind shear reduced it to a tropical storm about 30 hours after its peak, and it never affected land.

Typhoon Bilis and Typhoon Saomai both reached 140 kt, Category 5 strength. Bilis strengthened from 90 kt to 140 kt in about 30 hours on its approach to Taiwan and recorded the season's lowest pressure, 920 hPa, on August 21. Saomai reached its peak of 140 kt and 925 hPa on September 10 after a second burst of rapid intensification, and with 438 recorded hours it was also the longest-lived storm of the year.

Several other typhoons came close. Typhoon Shanshan peaked at 135 kt and 925 hPa over open water on September 21, and Typhoon Jelawat reached 125 kt in early August after strengthening from 55 kt to 115 kt in 18 hours. Jelawat later developed an unusually large eye, about 90 nm across. Typhoon Kirogi peaked at 115 kt in July and Typhoon Yagi at 105 kt in October. Typhoon Soulik reached 110 kt on January 3, 2001, so its major-typhoon stage falls outside the 2000 calendar-year count.

Landfalls and impacts

The deadliest single disaster of the year came in July, when rain from Typhoon Kai-Tak and Typhoon Kirogi soaked Luzon. Near Manila, part of a rain-soaked dumpsite collapsed and caught fire, killing 160 people with another 150 missing, according to the JTWC report. JTWC also attributed 27 deaths from floods and landslides in northern and central Luzon to Kai-Tak, which later struck northeast Taiwan and Zhejiang, where China reported about $82 million in direct economic losses. Kirogi brushed the Boso Peninsula of Japan, causing three deaths and about 15 billion yen in damage in 2000 values.

Typhoon Bilis crossed southern Taiwan near peak strength on August 22 and made a second landfall in Fujian the next day. JTWC's report gives 14 deaths in Taiwan, with $133.5 million in agricultural, fishery and forestry damage, and 57 deaths and $534 million in economic losses in mainland China, as reported in US dollars at the time. Tropical Storm Maria struck Guangdong east of Hong Kong at the end of August, and the China Meteorological Administration reported 72 deaths and $317 million in losses.

Typhoon Prapiroon crossed the Yellow Sea to the Korean Peninsula at the end of August. News reports cited at least 10 deaths in China and 46 in South Korea, where 29,400 houses were destroyed and damage was estimated at 12.5 billion won. Typhoon Saomai followed two weeks later: rain of more than 32 inches in parts of central Japan caused deadly flooding, and the Korea Meteorological Administration recorded 491 mm of rain in southern South Korea between September 12 and 16. Typhoon Wukong struck Hainan and northern Vietnam, with five deaths reported in Hainan and two in Ha Tinh.

The autumn storms fell hardest on the Philippines and Taiwan. Typhoon Xangsane hit southern Luzon on October 27, killing 40 people there by Associated Press reports, then paralleled Taiwan's east coast, where flooding caused 59 deaths. On October 31 a Singapore Airlines jet crashed while trying to take off from a closed runway at Taipei as Xangsane skirted the island, killing 82 of the 179 people on board, and poor visibility from the storm may have played a part. Typhoon Bebinca crossed Luzon on November 2 and passed directly over Manila, killing 26 people, and Tropical Storm Rumbia caused flooding blamed for 48 deaths in the central Philippines in early December.

New names and different counts

2000 was the first season to use the list of 140 names contributed by the 14 members of the ESCAP/WMO Typhoon Committee, so Damrey, Saomai, Xangsane and every other international name was used for the first time. It was also the last year that the Philippine weather agency PAGASA used its older scheme of Filipino female names ending in "ng", such as Asiang for Damrey and Reming for Xangsane, before switching to a new list in 2001.

Agency totals differ from the site's because they measure different things. The Japan Meteorological Agency named 23 tropical storms and classed 13 as typhoons using ten-minute average winds, which run lower than one-minute winds and leave fewer storms above each threshold. JTWC's own warnings count 25 tropical storms and typhoons, 15 of them typhoons. The site's archive also arrives at 25 tropical storms, though not quite the same set, and its 14 typhoons exclude Soulik, which reached typhoon strength only on January 3, 2001, because season counts use calendar-year observations.