Typhoon Tip

Typhoon Tip, known in the Philippines as Super Typhoon Warling, was the largest and the most intense tropical cyclone ever recorded worldwide. The forty-third tropical depression, nineteenth tropical storm, twelfth typhoon, and third super typhoon of the 1979 Pacific typhoon season, Tip developed out of a disturbance within the monsoon trough on October 4 near Pohnpei in Micronesia. Initially, Tropical Storm Roger to the northwest hindered the development and motion of the system, although after the storm tracked farther north, Tip was able to intensify due to more favorable conditions within the region. After passing Guam, Tip rapidly intensified and reached peak sustained winds of 305 km/h (190 mph) and a worldwide record-low sea-level pressure of 870 hPa (25.69 inHg) on October 12. At its peak, Tip was the largest tropical cyclone on record, with a windfield diameter of 2,220 km (1,380 mi). The system slowly weakened as it continued west-northwestward and later turned to the northeast, in response to an approaching trough. After its approach, Tip made landfall in southern Japan on October 19, and became an extratropical cyclone shortly after its landfall. The system's extratropical remnants continued moving east-northeastward, until they dissipated near the Aleutian Islands on October 24. U.S. Air Force aircraft flew approximately 60 weather reconnaissance missions into the storm, making Tip one of the most closely observed tropical cyclones. Rainfall from the storm indirectly led to a fire that killed 13 United States Marines and injured 68 at Combined Arms Training Center, Camp Fuji in the Shizuoka Prefecture of Japan. Elsewhere in the country, the typhoon also caused widespread flooding and 42 deaths; offshore shipwrecks left 44 people killed or missing.