According to the Japan Meteorological Agency, a key factor to consider for the 2024 typhoon season is the ongoing change in the ENSO (Southern Oscillation), which will have a major impact on the number of tropical storms developing in the eastern and northwest Pacific from August onwards.
ENSO is an unstable cyclical change of wind and surface temperature of the tropical East Pacific Ocean, affecting the climate of most tropical and subtropical regions. The period of warm sea temperatures or hot phase is called El Nino and the cold phase is called La Nina.
According to the Typhoon page on the Northwest Pacific, signs of La Nina are getting closer in August, with the latest manifestation being the cold water in the eastern Pacific expanding and gradually spreading towards the western Pacific.
Temperature in the Pacific Ocean in recent days has tended to decrease, and is currently at -0.265.
The possibility of La Nina developing at the peak of the storm season will have a major impact on the number of tropical storms developing.
In a typical La Nina model, in addition to preventing storms in the eastern Pacific, storm development is also prevented between the Pacific Ocean and most of the western Pacific, except for the East Sea, which saw storms increase during La Nina.
With the rapid transition from El Nino to La Nina in just a short time in 2024, and what natural disasters have occurred across areas in Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan (China) in recent times, it is like an early warning bell for extreme weather phenomena - unusual, unpredictable, accompanied by a series of natural disasters that may occur in areas in the East Sea and Northwest Pacific in the rest of 2024.
The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PASAGA) said that La Nina could make landfall faster. PASAGA warned that with storms near land, there will be less time to prepare.
Also according to the Typhoon page on the Northwest Pacific, the Northwest Pacific typhoon area is forecast to have about 15-20 named storms from now until the end of 2024, with the possibility of 2-4 storms strengthening into super typhoons with winds of 241km/h or more. The number of storms is mainly concentrated in the eastern Philippines and the East Sea.
In the East Sea area, the number of storms and tropical depressions from now until the end of the year can account for 50-60% of the total number of the Northwest Pacific region, i.e. about 9-12 storms and tropical depressions, with 4-6 storms likely to directly impact the mainland, beware of the possibility of super typhoons appearing in the area from September to October 2024.
