Typhoon History

Preparing the typhoon record…

1945–2026

Play the record season by season.

Tiles © Esri

Loading The Typhoon Record

Reading eight decades of Pacific best-track data…

Filtered Record Storm Details
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Typhoon Guide

Understand The Map And Storm Categories

This tool lives at typhoon.jbf.com. Its Atlantic sister is hurricane.jbf.com.

Every line on this map is one storm's path. Color shows the category the storm reached. Choose a single storm and switch to the 3D wind profile to see the track rise with the wind speed measured at each point along the way, climbing as the storm strengthens and settling as it weakens.

ShapeWhere Did It Go?

The six-hour positions recorded for the storm, drawn end to end.

ColorWhat Category?

The strongest category the storm reached anywhere along its path.

HeightHow Strong, And When?

In the wind profile, height is the wind at each point. It reads clearly for one storm; with the whole record raised at once the tracks overlap.

Using The Map

A Simple Three-Step Workflow

  1. Choose the years and strength.Use the left panel or start with a guided view.
  2. Play the timeline.Watch the record build season by season, or hold on a single year.
  3. Select a storm.Click any track. The right panel tells that storm's story; the table below the map lists every storm behind the current view.

The Saffir-Simpson Scale, Applied To Typhoons

What The Categories Mean

A typhoon is the same kind of storm as a hurricane, given a different name west of the dateline. This map covers both sides: typhoons from the Western Pacific and hurricanes from the Eastern and Central Pacific, including the ones that reach Hawaii, Mexico, and the American Southwest. Every storm is graded on the Saffir-Simpson wind thresholds using one-minute sustained winds, so a Category 4 here means the same wind as a Category 4 on the Atlantic map. Categories describe wind only, not surge, rainfall, or size, which cause most deaths.

Category Sustained Wind Typical Effects
DepressionUnder 39 mphAn organized system that has not yet reached storm strength.
Tropical Storm39–73 mphThe storm earns a name. Downed limbs and local flooding.
Category 174–95 mphTyphoon strength. Damage to roofing, siding, and trees.
Category 296–110 mphMajor roof and siding damage; near-total power loss.
Category 3111–129 mphMajor typhoon. Homes lose roof decking and gables.
Category 4130–156 mphSevere damage; from 150 mph the center calls it a super typhoon.
Category 5157 mph and higherCatastrophic damage; a high share of homes destroyed.

“Super typhoon” is the Joint Typhoon Warning Center's term: one-minute winds of 150 mph or more. The Western Pacific produces more of these than any other basin on Earth. A weaker storm that stalls over the Philippines can still kill more people than a super typhoon that stays at sea.

Reading The Record

Compare Historical Periods Carefully

  • The record starts in 1945, when aircraft reconnaissance of Pacific storms began. Routine satellite coverage arrived in the mid-1960s; before that, storms that stayed at sea could be missed and positions can be off by dozens of miles.
  • Winds are one-minute sustained values: the Joint Typhoon Warning Center west of the dateline, the National Hurricane Center and Central Pacific Hurricane Center east of it. Japan's Meteorological Agency reports ten-minute winds, which run lower for the same storm, so category grades published in Asia will not always match these.
  • Central pressure is missing for many storms before the 1970s, so the map shows it only when it was recorded.
  • Landfalls are derived from the track: a landfall point is where the storm center moved from sea onto a country's land, or within 40 km of one of its small islands. An island chain like the Philippines therefore records several landfall points for one crossing.
  • Western Pacific tracks that cross the dateline usually end within a few degrees of it. The Joint Typhoon Warning Center stops tracking there, and no agency follows an extratropical system on into the Bering Sea, so the storms that reach the Aleutians and Alaska appear to stop at 180° when in fact only the record does.
  • This map deliberately carries no death or damage figures. Every number here comes from the best-track record itself.
  • The current season is a provisional operational track until the final best track is published, usually the following year.

Storm Names

Who Names A Pacific Storm?

Eight agencies name storms in the Pacific. The Eastern Pacific and Philippine lists start over at A every January; the Hawaiian, Western Pacific, Australian and South Pacific lists pick up where the last storm left off. That is how Hawaii saw two "L" storms, Lowell and Lala, in 2026.

How Pacific Storms Get Their Names
About The Data
Record
1945–2026
Storms
Pending
Super Typhoons
Pending
Track Points
Pending
Landfall Points
Pending

Source: NOAA International Best Track Archive for Climate Stewardship (IBTrACS), Western and Eastern Pacific basins, with one-minute winds and pressures from the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, the National Hurricane Center, and the Central Pacific Hurricane Center. Countries and territories come from Natural Earth; the United States is shown as Hawaii, Alaska, and the mainland.

Official References NOAA NCEI: IBTrACS Best Track Archive Joint Typhoon Warning Center National Hurricane Center: Eastern Pacific Best Track Data National Hurricane Center: The Saffir-Simpson Scale
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