Category5Kaiju wrote:euro6208 wrote:In summary, the WPAC will have a very active season no matter what the state of ENSO.
Even last year, the WPAC got 23 named storms; unless you have something go very wrong like in 2010 or 2017, the WPAC really does not "care" about the ENSO state; in fact, as seen in years like 2008, 2010, and 2020, even if conditions are unfavorable for the WPAC, there has only been like three or four documented years when no Cat 5 super typhoon was every generated.
+/-ENSO states do impact the frequency of powerful storms, the ratio of majors to total named storms, and the tracks and formation hotspots. For example, 2017 was a cool neutral and saw a lot of SCS slop with very few majors and no official Cat 5, while 2018 was a warm neutral/weak Niño with half a dozen long-tracking Cat 5s, four of which (Jebi, Mangkhut, Kong-Rey, and Yutu) have arguments for being 155-165 kt.
But Kaiju and euro are right, the WPac will likely produce something big even if it’s a Niña. Seems like a decent number of Niña years have this single ultra-intense Philippines storm — Zeb in 1998, Megi in 2010, and Goni in 2020.