Rare Pacific Typhoon Forms in mid-February

February 10th, 2015 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.

Pacific Typhoon Higos has formed in the tropical West Pacific. What makes this storm unusual is that it has formed at the least likely time of year, climatologically speaking.

Rare Typhoon Higos viewed by the NASA MODIS imager on Feb. 10, 2015.

Rare Typhoon Higos viewed by the NASA MODIS imager on Feb. 10, 2015.

North Pacific typhoons have formed in all calendar months, but a Japanese analysis of the dates they form suggests that Feb. 11 is the least likely date. This date can be considered the beginning (or end) of the typhoon season.

So, Typhoon Higos might be considered the latest north Pacific typhoon on record. Or maybe it’s the earliest (there was a Feb. 15, 1965 typhoon that had been considered the earliest). It all depends upon when you decide the start/end date of typhoon season is.

One thing for sure is that a typhoon in mid-February is rare, indeed. According to this historical list going back 65 years, no typhoons have ever formed during the week of 8-14 February.


44 Responses to “Rare Pacific Typhoon Forms in mid-February”

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  1. John Sumpter says:

    You forgot to add: “Regardless of what you think of this typhoon, it’s going to destroy everything.”

  2. Pure Hogwash says:

    Nice global warming falsified data.

  3. jimc says:

    Given that Chinese New Year isn’t until Feb 19 this year, I would say that this is a late 2014 storm. There’s also the fact that higos means fig in many languages.

  4. choggie says:

    @jmic-Thanks for the combination of chinese zaodiac divination/etymology, very cool!

  5. Sean says:

    I looked at the earth wind map http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/1000hPa/orthographic=-174.12,29.36,572 and it looks like there is a compact typhoon near Guam but it you look in the north Pacific between Hawaii and the Gulf of Alaska you see a huge rotating storm spinning away around a central low. Any ideas on how this bigger storm is going to affect US and Canadian weather as it heads east?

  6. Claude Hopper says:

    At one time I was responsible for offshore facilities in the Gulf of Thailand and studied the typhoon occurrences. The predominate time of storms in the gulf were Oct-Nov-Dec. However, there had been some tropical cyclones in the spring. The controlling feature was the inter-tropical convergence zone, which shifted north and south with the seasons. The late fall storms occurred when the zone front was drifting south. The only storms that could develop were ones that stayed south of the front. In the spring, the front moved back north over the gulf and storms could (rarely) form south of the front. Higos is pretty far north so must be north of the zone’s front. Odd.

  7. Jimbo says:

    Somebody forgot to explain that this is clearly the result of Global Warming and if people don’t start chipping in large amount of taxes to redistribute to politically connected people then the human race will be devastated by climate change.

  8. Common Sense says:

    Wow, nothing for 65 years! We need to panic because 65 years is like what in climate time – one tenth of a second, maybe. As in everything, we can’t just observe, we have to promote fear or ensure some strong emotion. It is just like when you want to make a small blip o a graph look huge you just cut off the bulk of the graph and change the scale so a blip looks enormous. Wow! Nothing like this has happened on this day for the past 65 years, but how about the past 66 years, or 100 years or ever?

  9. Nunya says:

    Holy smokes! We’re all gonna die. Global warming,Global warming,Global warming,Global warming,Global warming,Global warming,

  10. Marc Web says:

    Danger Will Robinson! Danger!

  11. Physics_Group says:

     

    Roy, you have not responded to the key issues in our group’s website (now viewed by over 500 of your readers) namely that direct solar radiation to the Earth’s surface is not what causes its temperature to be what it is. Nor does radiation from a colder atmosphere actually transfer thermal energy into the oceans, for example, and in fact it does not even penetrate by more than a few nanometers.

    The models are based on incorrect physics in that they assume there is proof that isothermal conditions would exist in a dry atmosphere without IR-active gases, whereas that is not the case because the equations for thermodynamic potentials are developed with a specific declaration that changes in gravitational potential energy are ignored. Thus, when using the entropy equations to prove the Clausius corollary of the Second Law, it should always be noted that such only applies in a horizontal plane. A force field, such as gravity or the centrifugal force in a Ranque-Hilsch vortex tube will always act on molecules in flight between collisions and redistribute molecular kinetic energy so as to create a temperature gradient and, in the case of the huge force in the vortex tube, this leads to very significant temperature differences between the emerging hot and cold streams. That valid physics can then be used to explain all planetary temperatures, even down to their cores.

    The new paradigm of course smashes the greenhouse conjecture.
     

    • Martin C says:

      Just a reminder all who post, please don’t feed this troll (Physics-Group, who is really Doug Cotton). We saw what happened on the UAH Global Temperature Update post, a few postings back . . .

      . . and I WON’T even bother to ask what evidence there is, or what physics professor would support, the claim that ‘heat only flows from hot to cold’ only occurs in a horizontal plane ( . . when referring to heat transfer in gases . .).

      . .OOOOOPS . .! I already forgot . . . ! 🙂 🙂 🙂

      • Bob Roberts says:

        Doug Cotton? The same Doug Cotton who pretty much said the opposite here?

        http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=9281

        QUOTE: When considering what happens as the Sun is warming the surface each morning, it is noted that its radiation is being directed onto the land surfaces and some distance below the surface of the oceans.

        He then goes on to mistakenly suggest that solar radiation PASSING THROUGH the atmosphere without affecting it is COMING FROM it.

        Fundamental misunderstanding of atmospheric and radiation basics noted.

      • PhysicsGroup says:

        Martin C

        Regarding your personal assumption about what any “physics professor” would say, how about you get one to confirm for you what is on Wikipedia here.

        “In thermodynamics, certain forces, such as gravity, are typically disregarded when formulating expressions for potentials. For example, while all the working fluid in a steam engine may have higher energy due to gravity while sitting on top of Mount Everest than it would at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the gravitational potential energy term in the formula for the internal energy would usually be ignored because changes in gravitational potential within the engine during operation would be negligible.”

        So, if you don’t understand from the above that the Clausius “hot to cold” statement is derived from an equation for entropy which assumes there is no change in gravitational potential energy, then I’m sure your physics professor will explain it to you.

        Bob Roberts

        Regarding what you claim I “suggest” I do no such thing. I quote verbatim below what I did go on to say in the Abstract, and of course the explanation is in the body of the paper.

        “So, additional radiation supposedly transferring further thermal energy from the cooler atmosphere to the warmer surface would violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics. This law must apply (on a macro scale) between any two points at any particular time. An apparent violation cannot be excused on the basis of “net” radiation, because “net” radiation has no corresponding physical entity and is meaningless and useless for determining heat flow in situations when other processes are also involved.

        “It may be deduced that none of the radiation from a cooler body(and only a portion of the radiation from a warmer body) has any thermodynamic effect on the other body.

        “All such radiation from a cooler source is rejected in some way,and it can be deduced that resonance and scattering occurs without any conversion to thermal energy. The radiation continues in another direction until it strikes a cooler target, which could be in space.”

  12. Old Timer says:

    Nonsense, back in my day, we had super typhoons in Feb. all the time. It’s just that the global warming media hysteria machine didn’t make a big deal out of them. They are trying to scare us into thinking that the climate is warming just because some storm out in the Pacific where nobody even lives. And it is snowing again in Boston. Idiots.

  13. It must be global warming what else. After all the record snows in Boston were due to global warming so they claim. lol

    • Bob Roberts says:

      Actually you have to understand their argument to begin to properly refute it.

      They’re claiming more warming, due to human carbon dioxide production, is causing more evaporation which is causing more snow. Somehow, though, the same process is also responsible for heat waves and droughts as well as cold snaps and deluges. That is where their ‘science’ gets a little fuzzy, if, by ‘fuzzy’, you mean bat guano crazy.

      • Lewis says:

        That’s the part I like. It’s warming, but colder is the new warm unless it really is warmer, in which case it’s warmer. So, get rid of your heavy coats and boots boys and girls because it is always warmer.

        To misquote the Postman from the movie by the same name: Things are getting warmer.

      • Walt Allensworth says:

        But Bob … “In the future, children just won’t know what snow is!” – Dr. David Viner, March 2000

        So which it is? Global warming causes more snow or less snow?
        Or is it both more snow and less snow?

        Is there nothing that global warming cannot do?

  14. ldd says:

    Spotted that this am on the earth.nullschool this am and that it goes from surface to the second top pHa level with a matching low pressure depression. Impressive, hope it doesn’t reach land.
    Been watching the Sea surface temp abnormality off the east and west coasts of N. America.
    The fact that the US admin is pointing to the CAGW lie as a ‘real threat’ shows in fact how much it’s not. What have they not lied about?

  15. Paul Cooper says:

    I worked in the JTWC (Joint Typhoon Warning Center) on Guam in 1973-1974. Yes Typhoons were possible in all months. Usually due to vertical sheer and the locations of the high pressure centers made for it to be unlikely for conditions to be conducive for significant tropical cyclone development. I am not overly worried that this is the end of life as we know it though!

    I am more concerned with the lack of understanding how the Sun affects the temperatures on the earth. I am not nor ever will be a fan of “Global Warming”. Please excuse the reference, “Audacity” of Man to think he can just pass a few taxes and legislation and make weather behave the way he wants is utterly lunacy.

    Please don’t try and feed me a load of crap and tell me it is “chocolate ice cream with nuts”!!!!

    • Bob Roberts says:

      The sad thing is that it is true we need to know about climate change and we’re wasting so much chasing lies over supposed human dominance of weather, temperature and climate trends – as those who champion these ridiculous notions engage in massive data falsification. One can only hope somewhere the actual REAL unaltered data exists (I understand Jones was thorough – in his case it does not) or REAL climate science will be set back decades if not a century or more.

      This climate fraud is the modern day equivalent of the Earth-centric theories of long ago, based on the same flawed assumption about humans being the center or cause of all things, right down to attacking anyone who dared suggest that the whole universe didn’t revolve around the Earth back in the time of Copernicus and Galileo, the modern day equivalent being vicious and unrelenting attacks against anyone who dares speak the obvious truths about climate and what drives it.

      • Lewis says:

        I have told you before, the cure is to sacrifice virgins. That will atone for man’s sins, which, solely, have caused these problems.

        • John Woodbury says:

          S(*t, where are we going to find any, now days? Hey! Lewis and I could set up a virgin testing outpost and check and record the the number of them we find in the population. Now all we need is 100 Million in grant funds.

  16. Thanks, Dr. Spencer.

    The Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) (U.S. Naval Oceanography Portal), at http://www.usno.navy.mil/NOOC/nmfc-ph/RSS/jtwc/ab/abpwsair.jpg offers a wider perspective of Higos in the Pacific Ocean.

  17. StuartL says:

    I just looked at it, it unusually small and compact, also there is a depression forming south of it.

  18. guardrail says:

    Wait, what? “According to this historical list going back 65 years, no typhoons have ever formed during the week of 8-14 February.” You mean to tell me that there are absolutely no records of weather events prior to 1950? No naval observation, no records from any nation in the Pacific?

  19. PhysicsGroup says:

    Roy and others.

    The models are wrong because of the initial assumption that without GH gases the troposphere would have been isothermal. We know this assumption is made because we know the 255K temperature is at about 5Km altitude, and yet they say the surface would have been the same 255K. From there they get their sensitivity by assuming water vapor makes rain forests about 30 to 40 degrees hotter than dry regions and carbon dioxide adds a bit of warming also. In fact none of that happens.

    The assumption regarding isothermal conditions is inherently applying the Clausius “hot to cold” statement which is just a corollary of the Second Law which only applies in a horizontal plane. That we know because it is clearly specified (as here) that the entropy equation is derived by assuming that changes in molecular gravitational potential energy can be ignored. It is those changes which actually cause the temperature gradient to evolve, so we must always remember that sensible heat transfers are not always from warmer to cooler regions in a vertical plane in a gravitational field
    .
    So they cannot prove that the Clausius statement they use to get their assumed isothermal conditions is correct in a vertical column of a planet’s troposphere, and so they cannot prove the fundamental building block upon which they built the GH conjecture.

    My response to any criticism is already written at http://climate-change-theory.com

  20. busseja says:

    This is the way weather needs to be reported. No al gore add on. Just the facts. Thanks to this report I’ll not float my canoe in the area. The problem with many other reports is that they try and explain the why of the weather. Better to just leave that to those who have nothing better to do than make fools of themselves. Typhoon active now. That is good info.

  21. RealTruth says:

    The (fake) Global Warming Religion is just a way to take money from your pockets!

    You guys can’t tell if New York City is going to get 3 centimeters or 3 meters of snow(as was proven by hysterical hype a few weeks ago). How can you possibly predict what’s going to happen to the earth in 10,000 years?
    Since “Global Warming” didn’t work, let’s try “Climate Change” because….well…..climate tends to change. Amen, brothers & sisters!

    Check out John Coleman’s (long time meteorologist and founder of the weather channel) take on “Global Warming” here:

    http://theinternationalcoalition.blogspot.com/2011/07/john-coleman-global-warming-is-scam.html

    Didn’t ‘Dear Leader’ help found the CCX (Chicago Climate Exchange), where one can invest in a pretend stock market of bragging rights(i.e. no tangible assets)…er….carbon credits? Seems like a scam to make money and develop a one-world order by buying & trading air.

  22. PhysicsGroup says:

     

    Roy and all climatologists contradict themselves.

    (1) They say the troposphere would have been isothermal without greenhouse gases (mostly water vapor) so that the surface would have been 255K which is the same as the radiating temperature 255K found about 5Km above the surface. Then they say GH gases (mostly water vapor) raise the surface temperature (not the radiating temperature) so that they increase the lapse rate (temperature gradient) to about 7C°/Km.

    (2) They say (and know full well) the the GH gas water vapor reduces the lapse rate.

     

  23. John F. Hultquist says:

    “On Feb. 11 at 1500 UTC (10 a.m. EST), the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) issued the final warning on Higos. At that time the storm had weakened from a typhoon to a depression with maximum sustained winds near 25 knots (28.7 mph/46.3 kph).”

  24. David Appell says:

    1) The comments section of this blog is, for me, not displaying properly in both Chrome and Internet Explorer.
    2) This has been going on for a month or two.
    3) I don’t expect anyone to care.
    2) Would this be a bad time to mention that the western Pacific Power Disspiation Index (PDI) has been increasing by 4%/decade since 1970?

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