2002 Pacific typhoon season

Fewer storms, but stronger ones

By number of storms, 2002 was close to or slightly below the long-term norm. JTWC's records for 1960 to 2002 average about 27.6 tropical storms and typhoons and 17.7 typhoons a year in the western North Pacific, against 24 and 16 in this year's archive. What stood out was intensity: 11 storms reached major typhoon strength of 96 kt or more, and the season's accumulated cyclone energy came to 351.2.

Sea surface temperatures ran above normal near the equator for most of the year and were warmest around 160°E, and a forecast issued in the spring pointed to El Niño conditions and a strong subtropical ridge. Thunderstorm activity developed farther east than usual, so many storms formed east of 150°E. The average point of formation, at 145.9°E, was the easternmost since 1951, and according to the Japan Meteorological Agency no tropical storm made landfall in the Philippines, also a first since 1951.

From a January start to a December finale

The year began early. Tropical Storm Tapah formed near Palau on January 8 and faded along the east coast of Luzon, and Typhoon Mitag became the first typhoon on March 1 before peaking as the first super typhoon on record in March. Typhoon Hagibis followed in May, turning northeast and reaching Category 5 without touching land.

Activity picked up in June, when a weakened ridge let several storms pass near or over Japan, beginning with Typhoon Noguri. Typhoons Rammasun and Chataan formed within a day of each other at the end of June, and July became the busiest stretch, with Halong, Nakri, Fengshen, Fung-Wong and an unnamed tropical storm that crossed the Philippines. Several of these systems enhanced the monsoon over the Philippines, where flooding on Luzon proved deadly.

August brought Tropical Storm Kammuri and Tropical Storm Vongfong into southern China, Typhoon Phanfone past Iwo Jima and, late in the month, Typhoons Rusa and Sinlaku. Hagupit, Mekkhala and Higos formed in September, but after that activity shifted east. October produced only two tropical storms, Bavi and Maysak, both of which stayed over open water, and Typhoon Haishen spun up south of Guam in November. Typhoon Pongsona, the last storm of the year, dissipated on December 11.

A season of super typhoons

Typhoon Fengshen was the strongest storm of the year, reaching one-minute winds of 145 kt and a minimum pressure of 892 hPa on July 21. JTWC kept it at super typhoon strength for five days, breaking the duration record set by Typhoon Joan in 1997. At its height Fengshen interacted with the smaller Typhoon Fung-Wong, which was forced into a loop to its south.

Typhoon Mitag and Typhoon Hagibis each reached 140 kt and 898 hPa, completing the season's three Category 5 storms. Mitag peaked on March 5 far east of Catanduanes, and Hagibis on May 19 west-southwest of the Northern Mariana Islands, holding its peak for only about 12 hours. Four more storms came within a few knots of that level: Typhoons Halong, Phanfone and Higos at 135 kt, and Typhoons Chataan and Pongsona at 130 kt. Chataan was also the longest-lived storm in the archive, with nearly 16 days of recorded track from late June to mid-July.

Landfalls and impacts

Typhoon Chataan was the season's deadliest storm in Micronesia. While still developing, it stalled near Chuuk and dropped 506 mm of rain in 24 hours, setting off landslides that killed 47 people in Chuuk and one on Pohnpei, the deadliest natural disaster in Micronesia's history. Damage in Micronesia exceeded US$100 million. Chataan's eyewall then crossed Guam on July 4, severely damaging or destroying 1,994 houses and causing US$60.5 million in damage, and it struck eastern Japan as a tropical storm, where flooding caused about US$500 million in damage. All damage figures here are in 2002 US dollars.

Typhoon Rusa crossed Japan's Amami Islands on August 26 and made landfall at Goheung in South Korea. It dropped 880 mm of rain in 24 hours at Gangneung, a national daily record, and killed at least 233 people in South Korea, the country's deadliest typhoon in more than 43 years, with about US$4.2 billion in damage. In North Korea, already suffering famine, the storm killed three people and left 26,000 homeless.

China took repeated hits. Tropical Storm Kammuri came ashore in Guangdong in early August, and its rains and remnants damaged or destroyed about 245,000 houses and killed 153 people, many of them inland in Hunan. Typhoon Sinlaku crossed Okinawa and made its final landfall near Wenzhou on September 7 with a record 204 km/h gust, killing 28 people in China and causing about US$709 million in damage there.

Typhoon Higos made landfall in Kanagawa Prefecture on October 1 and crossed Tokyo, cutting power to more than 600,000 buildings; damage in Japan reached about US$2.14 billion, with five deaths there and seven more in shipwrecks off Russia's Primorsky Krai. Typhoon Pongsona passed over Guam and Rota on December 8 near its peak. On Guam it destroyed 1,751 houses, injured 193 people and killed one, and caused about US$700 million in damage, one of the costliest storms in the island's history. Earlier, Typhoon Mitag had caused about US$150 million in damage on Yap, mostly to crops.

Counts, names and forecasting

Other tallies for 2002 differ because they measure different things. The Japan Meteorological Agency named 26 storms and counted 15 typhoons using ten-minute winds; its total includes Kalmaegi and Changmi, which it rated as tropical storms while US agencies did not, and Hurricanes Ele and Huko, which crossed the date line from the central Pacific and are not counted here. Two systems that JTWC warned on as tropical storms, one crossing the Philippines in July and one in August, remained depressions in the Japanese analysis. Colorado State University's energy total of 390.6, computed from JTWC data, is higher than this archive's 351.2, which counts only the tropical stage of the storms listed here.

The Typhoon Committee retired the names Chataan, Rusa and Pongsona, replacing them with Matmo, Nuri and Noul, and the spellings Noguri and Changmi were corrected to Neoguri and Jangmi. At JTWC, 2002 brought a large turnover of forecasters, which the center offset by leaning on consensus forecasts from several models. The center also moved its alternate site from Yokosuka to Monterey, began producing five-day track forecasts and, after Pongsona, started work on better conveying track uncertainty to users.