Typhoon Yagi experienced surprisingly rapid intensification in the northwest Pacific on Wednesday, rising from a Category 1 to a Category 4 typhoon in less than 12 hours. Yagi's one-minute sustained winds reached 150 mph at 8 p.m. ET Wednesday, according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center. This makes it a supertyphoon (1-minute sustained winds of at least 15 mph) and makes it the strongest tropical cyclone in the northwest Pacific so far this season. The environment around Yagi has little wind shear, sufficient moisture, and sea surface temperatures of about 30-31 degrees Celsius (86-88°F), which is about 1-2 degrees Celsius (1.8-3.6°F) higher than the average temperature.
An eyewall replacement cycle early Thursday weakened Yagi, and at 8 a.m. ET Thursday, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center described Yagi as a Category 4 storm with a one-minute average wind speed of 140 mph and a central pressure of 933 mb, moving west at 10:00. Further weakening is expected as Yagi interacts with land and ocean heat becomes increasingly inaccessible. Yagi is expected to make landfall on Friday morning (EST) in southern China's Guangdong Province, a tropical region that includes the southernmost point of mainland China. Yagi is expected to weaken to Category 1 before entering northern Vietnam on Saturday morning.
Ferries and passenger trains between Leizhou Peninsula and Hainan Island have been suspended, Xinhua News Agency reported. Yagi may move to or very close to Haikou, the island's largest city (population 3 million), located on the north coast of Hainan Island. If Yagi moves a little further north, the mainland coastal city of Zhanjiang (population 7 million) could also be severely affected.
If Yagi can enter China with the fourth level strength, it will join the selected club. In modern records, the long and densely populated east coast of China has experienced only 13 landfalling typhoons of Category 4 or above (Figure 1). Only two of them were Category 5 typhoons, the most recent being Rammasun in 2014. Losses exceeded $4 billion, see top five list below). Powerful typhoons tend to either curl up before reaching China or weaken on their way to the coast, especially when they interact with mountainous areas in the Philippines and Taiwan.
The five most destructive typhoons in China’s history
According to EM-DAT, the most expensive Chinese typhoons ever recorded (in inflation-adjusted 2023 dollars) are:
- 1) USD 25 billion, Doksuri, 2023
- 2) US$12 billion, Lekima, 2019
- 3) $9 billion, Fito, 2013
- 4) USD 6 billion, Colombia, 2018
- 5) $4 billion, Lamarsen, 2014
Omitted from this list was probably the most devastating typhoon in Chinese history, 1975’s Typhoon Nina. 171,000 people were killed and an area 34 miles long and 8 miles wide was razed to the ground. It was not until the mid-1990s that China revealed the disaster.
Atlantic Ocean still full of weak disturbances
It is worth noting that tropical cyclones in the North Atlantic remain suppressed during the first week of September. Earlier Thursday, the National Hurricane Center was tracking five systems, but none had a greater than 30 percent chance of developing. The unusual conditions give the Tropical Weather Outlook, released Thursday at 8 a.m. ET, a unique — and possibly unprecedented — look, with five lemon-colored threat areas and no orange or cherry ones. Threat Zone (see tweet below). With forecast models yet to reach strong agreement on any potential developments next week, it's not unlikely that the Atlantic will end up without a new naming system for four weeks or even a full month since Ernesto's appointment. Impossible.
We help millions of people understand climate change and what to do about it. Help us reach more people like you.
