East Asia Endures Intense Typhoon Season as El Niño Heats Pacific

What changed

East Asia has been hit by an unusually intense run of typhoons during an El Niño event, killing dozens and disrupting life across the Philippines, Taiwan, China and Japan. The storms have cancelled flights, cut power, forced evacuations, flooded villages and damaged crops and infrastructure. The reported regional Accumulated Cyclone Energy is forecast to reach nearly twice its 30-year average.

Why it matters

This is not one bad storm passing through. It is a season behaving like a conveyor belt.

Typhoon Champi reached reported winds of 295km/h and came close enough to shut down nearly all of Taiwan, while hundreds of flights were cancelled across Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan. In the Philippines, waves closed seaside highways in Batanes. Okinawa lost power to 15,000 homes.

The pattern is tied to an unusually hot Pacific. Equatorial Pacific waters reached 4C above normal, exceeding the previous record of 3.6C set in December 1997. Warm water gives typhoons more energy, while altered winds are helping storms form farther east and remain over warm water for longer.

The outlook is worrying, though not fixed. El Niño is expected to last until February or March, and warmer seas could sustain concern after the usual September-to-October peak. That does not establish that another major storm will make landfall, but it does mean communities already dealing with repeated disruption may have less time to recover between threats.