2026 Pacific typhoon season

Season overview

The year opened with a weak La Niña that faded early in 2026, and forecasters expected neutral conditions by midyear with a possible turn toward El Niño later on. Activity started early and stayed steady: storms formed in January, February, March and April before the usual summer peak, and August and September brought several systems active at once.

Counting storms in this basin depends on the agency. The Japan Meteorological Agency names a storm once its ten-minute winds reach 65 km/h, while the US Joint Typhoon Warning Center uses one-minute winds, and the Philippine agency PAGASA gives its own local names to storms in its area. By September 29 the JMA had named 26 storms; Choi-wan became the 27th on September 30. A few systems, such as Tropical Storm Haishen in July, were named by the JMA but never upgraded by the JTWC. The archive behind this site does not yet hold JTWC winds for most of these storms, so it does not rank them by intensity, and all figures below are provisional agency estimates.

Storm activity so far

Tropical Storm Nokaen formed south of Palau in January, the first January named storm since 2019, and brought deadly landslides to the Philippines. Tropical Storm Penha followed in February with several landfalls across Mindanao and the Visayas. Typhoon Sinlaku became the first typhoon in April, and Severe Tropical Storm Jangmi injured people in Okinawa before making landfall in Wakayama Prefecture on June 3.

Summer brought the strongest storms. Typhoon Mekkhala peaked in June east of the Philippines before brushing Taiwan and Japan, and in early July Typhoon Bavi struck Rota while Tropical Storm Maysak crossed Hainan into Vietnam and southern China. Typhoon Noul hit northern Luzon and Guangdong in late July. Typhoon Dolphin, which began as a disturbance near Hawaii and crossed the date line on July 26, made landfall in Zhejiang on August 9.

From mid-August the basin grew crowded. Typhoon Saudel, Tropical Storm Narra, Tropical Storm Gaenari, Typhoon Bang-Lang and several others overlapped in late August. In September, Tropical Storm Krovanh soaked southern Japan, Typhoon Dujuan swept past central Japan, and Typhoon Surigae was still active east of the Philippines on September 29.

Strongest storms so far

Typhoon Sinlaku holds the lowest pressure so far in operational estimates, 905 hPa from the JMA, with ten-minute winds of 115 knots. The JTWC put its one-minute winds at 160 knots on April 12, making it a super typhoon. Sinlaku then weakened through an eyewall replacement but was still very powerful when its center crossed northern Tinian on April 14, with Saipan inside its widened eye.

Typhoon Bavi and Typhoon Dolphin came close. Bavi strengthened from 70 to 125 knots in 18 hours and reached JTWC one-minute winds of 155 knots and a JMA pressure of 910 hPa, regaining its peak before passing over Rota on July 6. Dolphin reached 150 knots by the JTWC estimate and 910 hPa by the JMA, then went through four eyewall replacement cycles before landfall in China. Typhoon Mekkhala, at 125 knots, and Typhoon Surigae, at 130 knots by late September, both by JTWC one-minute estimates, were also among the strongest. These are working estimates that post-season reviews may change.

Landfalls and impacts

Tropical Storm Maysak caused the deadliest flooding so far: early reports put the toll at 171 deaths in southern China, 159 of them in Guangxi. In the Philippines, Typhoon Bavi's rains and landslides killed 23 people with 18 missing, Tropical Storm Kujira killed at least 13 with 9 missing, and Tropical Storm Penha killed 12, with damage in Iligan and Surigao del Sur of about ₱1.48 billion (US$25.24 million, 2026). Tropical Storm Nokaen killed three.

Japan was hit repeatedly. Typhoon Dujuan put more than 1.6 million people under evacuation orders and left four dead and six missing in Kanagawa and Chiba. Typhoon Mekkhala killed three in Japan and two in Taiwan. Severe Tropical Storm Chan-Hom made the first recorded landfall in Ibaraki Prefecture since JMA records began in 1951, moving east to west, and Tropical Storm Krovanh helped bring an unprecedented 576.5 mm of rain in 48 hours to part of Yakushima.

Elsewhere, Tropical Storm Gaenari's rain broke daily and three-day records in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, killing one person and injuring 164. Tropical Storm Narra's flash floods in Guangxi were described as the worst in 18 years. A tropical depression over Cambodia in late September fed widespread flooding in Bangkok, with 23 deaths and more than US$327 million in damage reported. Sinlaku left one dead in Micronesia and six missing after a cargo ship capsized in the Northern Mariana Islands. All of these tolls are early and may be revised.

Storm names

Six international names were used for the first time this year: Nokaen, Penha, Peilou, Narra, Gaenari and Bang-Lang, which replaced names retired after the 2019 and 2020 seasons. PAGASA also used four new local names, Ada, Francisco, Kiyapo and Pilandok. Any retirements from this season will be decided in 2027.