2008 Pacific typhoon season

A below-normal year

The Joint Typhoon Warning Center warned on 27 tropical cyclones in the western North Pacific in 2008, against an average of 31, and called the year a continuation of below-normal activity in the basin. Every one of those systems reached tropical storm strength, which is close to the center's 1959 to 2008 average of about 26 tropical storms and typhoons a year. The shortfall was in the stronger systems: only 12 became typhoons, compared with an average of nearly 18. The season's accumulated cyclone energy of 176.5 units reflects that lack of long-lived, intense typhoons.

Seasonal forecasters expected more. Tropical Storm Risk began in March by calling for a season about 20 percent below average, citing conflicting climate signals, but from May onward it predicted a near-normal year with 28 tropical storms, 18 typhoons and 8 intense typhoons. The Guy Carpenter Asia-Pacific Climate Impact Centre at City University of Hong Kong went further, forecasting 30 tropical storms and 19 typhoons. The tropical storm and intense typhoon forecasts came close, but typhoons as a whole fell well short.

The 27 tropical storms, 12 typhoons and 8 major typhoons shown here count one-minute sustained winds from US agencies, so they match JTWC's own warning totals. The Japan Meteorological Agency, which measures ten-minute winds, named 22 storms and ranked 11 as typhoons. Six of JTWC's tropical storms, short-lived systems numbered 01W, 11W, 14W, 16W, 17W and 22W, never reached tropical storm strength on the Japanese scale and so went unnamed. In the other direction, Tropical Storm Phanfone was named by the Japanese agency southeast of Japan in August but never received a JTWC warning, so the archive holds it without a one-minute wind and it does not add to the tropical storm count. The Philippine weather service, PAGASA, tracked 21 systems in its own area of responsibility and gave them local names.

How the season unfolded

The season opened on January 13, when a short-lived tropical storm formed west of Manila and drifted to the Malaysian coast without causing damage. Typhoon Neoguri followed in April, becoming the first typhoon of the year on April 16 before weakening and coming ashore in Guangdong as a weak tropical storm. China's meteorological agency said no tropical cyclone had affected the country so early in the year, beating the May 1971 record set by Typhoon Wanda.

May was the season's first busy spell. Enhanced thunderstorm activity over the Philippine Sea and the South China Sea helped four named storms form during the month, Rammasun, Matmo, Halong and Nakri, which tied 1971 and 1980 for the most May storms the Japanese agency had recorded since 1951. Rammasun and Nakri both intensified rapidly over open water to Category 4 strength, while Halong crossed northern Luzon.

The Japanese agency described June through October as very quiet, with only 13 named storms. Typhoon Fengshen was June's only storm. Typhoon Kalmaegi and Typhoon Fung-Wong both struck Taiwan in the second half of July, and August brought a cluster of mostly weak systems, including Tropical Storm Kammuri in southern China, Tropical Storm Vongfong off Japan and Typhoon Nuri, which crossed northern Luzon and then headed for Hong Kong.

September was the peak of the year. Typhoon Sinlaku formed in the Philippine Sea on September 8 and lingered for about two weeks, the longest record of the season. Typhoon Hagupit and Typhoon Jangmi followed in quick succession later in the month, and Tropical Storm Mekkhala and Tropical Storm Higos formed as Jangmi was weakening. Activity faded afterward: October produced only a weak storm in the Gulf of Tonkin and Tropical Storm Bavi far southeast of Japan, and November brought three tropical storms, Maysak, Haishen and Noul. Typhoon Dolphin closed the season, reaching typhoon strength on December 15 over the open Philippine Sea before becoming extratropical on December 18.

The strongest storms

Typhoon Jangmi was the season's most intense cyclone. It formed south of Guam on September 23 and strengthened rapidly as it moved toward Taiwan, reaching Category 5 intensity with peak one-minute winds of 140 knots and a minimum pressure of 918 hPa on September 27. On the Japanese agency's ten-minute scale it peaked at 115 knots and 905 hPa. It was the only Category 5 storm of the year.

Seven other storms became major typhoons. Typhoon Rammasun peaked at 135 knots on May 10 east of the Philippines, an unusual strength for so early in the year, though it stayed at sea and only brushed Japan as it became extratropical. Typhoon Nakri in late May, Typhoon Sinlaku in early September and Typhoon Hagupit later that month each reached 125 knots. Typhoon Fengshen peaked at 110 knots, and Typhoon Neoguri and Typhoon Nuri at 100 knots.

Landfalls and impacts

Typhoon Fengshen caused the heaviest loss of life. It made landfall near Sulat on Samar on June 20, then tracked northwest across the central Philippines, turning toward Metro Manila before crossing southern Luzon near Lucena. It emerged into the South China Sea on June 22 and came ashore again in Guangdong near Hong Kong late on June 24. The season table in the Wikipedia article, which counts deaths and damage from every stage of each storm in 2008 US dollars, lists 1,371 deaths and about $430 million in damage for Fengshen.

The Philippines was also hit by Tropical Storm Halong in May, which crossed western Pangasinan and northern Luzon and was blamed for 58 deaths and about $94 million in damage on Luzon, with more than 43,000 houses destroyed. Typhoon Kalmaegi killed two people in northern Luzon in July, and Typhoon Nuri caused 12 deaths and 461.3 million pesos in damage there in August before making a rare direct hit on Hong Kong.

Taiwan was struck four times by typhoons. Kalmaegi crossed Yilan County on July 17, killing at least 19 people and dropping more than 1,100 millimeters of rain in parts of Tainan County, and Fung-Wong came ashore near the border of Hualien and Taitung counties ten days later. Sinlaku hit the island on September 13 at Category 2 strength after weakening from its peak. Jangmi followed on September 28, coming ashore at Yilan; its rain reached 994 millimeters, it caused two deaths in Taiwan and four more in Japan, and the mountains broke up its core so that it left the island as a tropical storm.

Southern China and Vietnam absorbed several more landfalls. Typhoon Hagupit reached the coast near Zhanjiang in western Guangdong on September 24, and the Wikipedia season table gives it the year's largest damage estimate, about $3 billion in 2008 US dollars, with 67 deaths. Tropical Storm Kammuri struck western Guangdong and then Guangxi in early August, and the same table lists 204 deaths for it. Tropical Storm Mekkhala came ashore in Vietnam at the end of September, and in November Tropical Storm Noul crossed southern Vietnam, where landslides and flooding killed 21 people.

Forecast challenges and names

JTWC singled out two storms in its annual review. Every numerical model it relied on predicted that Typhoon Fengshen would turn north within a day of each forecast, some at sharp right angles, while the subtropical ridge instead kept steering it west-northwest across the Philippines. Forecasters were reluctant to break from unanimous guidance, and the official track forecasts were badly wrong; the UK Met Office model performed best.

Typhoon Sinlaku intensified from 35 knots to 120 knots in two days as it moved toward Taiwan, a jump none of the intensity guidance anticipated. After weakening near Taiwan it strengthened quickly a second time, from 50 to 70 knots in 18 hours on September 18 and 19, and reconnaissance aircraft flying for the T-PARC field campaign, an international effort that collected storm data through August and September, confirmed an increase that satellite estimates had understated.

The names Matmo, Nuri, Noul and Dolphin were used for the first time in 2008. No international names were retired, but PAGASA retired its local names Frank, used for Fengshen, and Cosme, used for Halong, because of the deaths and damage they caused, and later chose Ferdie and Carina to replace them.