Strongest Landfalling Hurricane Worldwide

[Ptarmigan]

Just curious, I wonder what is the strongest hurricane in terms of pressure and/or wind to make landfall worldwide, like a typhoon or tropical cyclone in the Indian Ocean or South Pacific?

[Aslkahuna]

That will take some digging into the archives. I know Patsy in 1970 made landfall east of Manila with 135kt winds and that Kate in 1970 made landfall south of Davao with 130kt winds. However, there were no reporting stations in the landfall areas so no pressures are available for landfall. Tracy in 1974 and Monica last year seem to be the winners for the Southern Hemisphere. For the NIO, we would have to look at teh Bay of Bengal storm in 1970 that killed 300000+ in what is now Bangladesh. It also depends upon what you would want to consider a landfall as some of the smaller islands in the Pacific have seen some horrendous storms but little in the way of reports have ever come from them. Guam's biggest hit remains STY Karen at 135kt in November 1962.

Steve

[Ptarmigan]

That will take some digging into the archives. I know Patsy in 1970 made landfall east of Manila with 135kt winds and that Kate in 1970 made landfall south of Davao with 130kt winds. However, there were no reporting stations in the landfall areas so no pressures are available for landfall. Tracy in 1974 and Monica last year seem to be the winners for the Southern Hemisphere. For the NIO, we would have to look at teh Bay of Bengal storm in 1970 that killed 300000+ in what is now Bangladesh. It also depends upon what you would want to consider a landfall as some of the smaller islands in the Pacific have seen some horrendous storms but little in the way of reports have ever come from them. Guam's biggest hit remains STY Karen at 135kt in November 1962.

Steve

I would also include both islands and continents.

[Jim Cantore]

Well you said worldwide

I believe Super Typhoon Zeb hit the Philippines in 1998 with 180mph winds and a central pressure of 872mb (estimated)

Only one Tropical Cyclone (Tip) was more intense and it never made landfall

[Ptarmigan]

Well you said worldwide

I believe Super Typhoon Zeb hit the Philippines in 1998 with 180mph winds and a central pressure of 872mb (estimated)

Only one Tropical Cyclone (Tip) was more intense and it never made landfall

Super Typhoon Zeb is one of the most power typhoons on record. It under went an explosive development from 70 to 180! Good Lord! Only 100 died thankfully. If Hurricane Katrina like that, New Orleans would be leveled. 872 mb is awfully low for that type. I've seen satellite images of Zeb and it is large. Here's a link with good info about Zeb.

Link

[Aslkahuna]

According to the summary in the 1998 ATCR Zeb was 155kt (180 mph) just before landfall in NE Luzon. However, the 872 mb pressure is an estimate based upon satellite since there are no reporting stations in that particular section of Luzon which is north of Baler Bay. It is also a relatively sparsely populated area which accounts for the low death toll. That is very mountainous terrain up there so it's possible that the strongest winds remained offshore or were restricted to a small area on the immediate coastline north of the coast in point. Winds south of where the center made landfall would not have been anywhere near as strong because of the terrain influences.

In reality, STY Gay in 1992 is considered second to Tip in terms of intensity and it even had a higher Dvorak than Tip (as did Angela in 1995)
but again all these are estimates since actual recon measurements ended in the late 1980's. Thus, although Zeb was caried at 155kt we can't really be sure that it WAS 155kt.

Steve