Taiwan, Philippines have taken quite a severe pounding from several major typhoons since mid- to late-October. (Joint Typhoon Warning Center)
8 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 17, Japan time: Given the traffic on Typhoon Turnpike in the northwest Pacific in the last few weeks, one could be forgiven if people wonder what month it actually is.
Late October and November have seen quite a bit of history made, especially around the Philippines and Taiwan, which have taken a serious pounding this season.
-- October was particularly rough on Taiwan, one of the most densely populated countries in the world with 23.3 million as of summer 2023 in a country that’s 245 miles long and 90 miles wide.
Taiwan saw two major storms hit the island in October and early November. Krathon, a Category 4-equivalent super typhoon which plowed ashore in early October, was the first to hit the densely populated western plains since Typhoon Thelma in 1977.
Kong-rey followed on Nov. 1, a Category 4-equivalent system that was nearly 200 miles wide in diameter, the biggest storm to hit the island since Typhoon Herb in 1996.
All that came on the heels of Gaemi, which peaked as a Category 4-equivalent typhoon before making landfall over northeast Taiwan as a tropical storm in late July before moving on to China.
-- The Philippines has taken quite a few weather-equivalent roundhouse punches in the last month. No fewer than six – that’s right, six – tropical cyclones have affected the archipelago since late October, mainly the central Visayas region, the northernmost main island of Luzon and the northern Babuyan and Batanes island groups. That according to Western Pacific Weather.
The Philippines’ tropical cyclone parade started with Tropical Storm Trami in mid- to late-October, with Typhoon Toraji and Super Typhoons Kong-rey, Yinxing, Usagi and most recently Man-yi next.
Man-yi made landfall twice over the weekend, over Catanduanes Island on Saturday and Aurora on Sunday, both times as a super typhoon.
That makes four straight typhoons, three of them super typhoons, to pound the islands in November, the most since records began being kept in 1951, and six total dating back to October.
And not since records began being kept had four active tropical cyclones been observed in the western Pacific in the month of November; again, according to Western Pacific Weather.
The northwest Pacific’s typhoon season nominally runs from June 1 to November 30, with August to October seeing the most activity on average. Of the 27 numbered storms thus far this season, 16 have occurred since early October. A busy latter part of the season, indeed.
