Lably
Skip to content

2017 Pacific typhoon season

  • 41 min read
  • 5 chapters

Explore on Lably

ToursExplore Lably’s 3D tours

The scope of this article is limited to the Pacific Ocean, to the north of the equator between 100°E and the 180th meridian. Within the northwestern Pacific Ocean, there are two separate agencies that assign names to tropical cyclones, which can often result in a cyclone having two names. The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) will name a tropical cyclone should it be judged to have 10-minute sustained wind speeds of at least 65 km/h (40 mph) anywhere in the basin. PAGASA assigns unofficial names to tropical cyclones which move into or form as a tropical depression in their area of responsibility, located between 115°E–135°E and between 5°N–25°N, regardless of whether or not a tropical cyclone has already been given a name by the JMA. Tropical depressions that are monitored by the United States' Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) are given a numerical designation with a "W" suffix.

Seasonal forecast

During the year, several national meteorological services and scientific agencies forecast how many tropical cyclones, tropical storms, and typhoons will form during a season and/or how many tropical cyclones will affect a particular country. These agencies include the Tropical Storm Risk (TSR) Consortium of University College London, PAGASA, and Taiwan's Central Weather Bureau. The first forecast of the year was released by PAGASA during January 20, within its seasonal climate outlook for the period January–June. The outlook noted that one to two tropical cyclones were expected between January and March, while two to four were expected to develop or enter the Philippine Area of Responsibility between April and June. On March 23, the Hong Kong Observatory predicted that the tropical cyclone season in Hong Kong would be near-normal, with four to seven tropical cyclones coming within 500 km (310 mi) of the territory, compared to an average of six, which was revised to six to nine tropical cyclones in August.

On May 5, Tropical Storm Risk (TSR) issued their first forecast for the season, anticipating an activity of slightly above normal with 27 named storms, 17 typhoons and 10 intense typhoons, including an accumulated cyclone energy (ACE) of 357. On June 26, Taiwan's Central Weather Bureau (CWB) predicted a normal season with 21–25 tropical storms developing over the basin, while three — five systems were expected to affect Taiwan itself. On the same day, the Thai Meteorological Department (TMD) predicted that 2 tropical cyclones would move towards the northern or northeastern parts of Thailand during August or September. On July 6, TSR released their second forecast for the season, reducing the predicted numbers to 25 named storms, 15 typhoons, and 7 intense typhoons, with an ACE Index of 250. During the same day, the PAGASA issued their second and final outlook for the season for the period of July–December, where six to nine tropical cyclones were expected to develop or entered their area of responsibility between July and September, while three to five were forecast during October to December. During August 8, the TSR released their third and final forecast for the season, slightly raising their forecast named storms to 26, with 14 reaching typhoon intensity and 7 reaching intense typhoon intensity. ACE Indices were slightly raised to 255.

Sign in to keep reading

4 more chapters are free with a Lably account.

More in Earth science