2026 Pacific Northwest sees heightened storm activity and rare annular typhoons

The Pacific’s tropical cyclone activity has remained high since April 2026, when Sinlaku intensified to super typhoon strength and struck Micronesia, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands. By the end of October, the Northwest Pacific Basin still hosted active storms. On October 29, 2026, the EPIC camera aboard the DSCOVR satellite captured an image of Super Typhoon In‑fa near the Mariana Islands, while the remnants of Typhoon Champi moved toward Alaska amid a series of storms traversing the Bering Sea. In‑fa was the fifth typhoon to reach the Mariana Islands that year, and the MODIS instrument on NASA’s Terra satellite recorded the storm the following day, just west of the island chain.

In‑fa displayed characteristics of an annular tropical cyclone: a nearly circular shape, a large eye, and an absence of prominent outer rainbands. Annular storms are uncommon, representing only about 4 percent of tropical cyclones in the western North Pacific. Their eyes average roughly 45 kilometers in diameter, larger than the 25‑kilometer eyes typical of standard tropical cyclones, and they tend to maintain strength longer in unfavorable conditions. By the time EPIC captured In‑fa, the storm remained tropical, whereas Champi’s remnants had undergone extratropical transition and entered the Bering Sea’s storm track.

Extratropical cyclones differ from tropical cyclones by having cold cores and drawing energy from temperature contrasts between warm and cold air masses. They usually develop fronts and large comma‑shaped cloud bands. NASA meteorologist Gary Partyka noted that extratropical transitions often expand a storm’s wind field, covering a larger area even if wind speeds do not increase. In this case, Partyka suggested that Champi’s remnants likely intensified a midlatitude system over the Bering Sea, creating a large, comma‑shaped cloud pattern on October 30.

Champi’s transformation followed a destructive path across the West Pacific, where it reached maximum sustained winds of nearly 300 kilometers per hour, prompting some observers to label it one of the season’s strongest storms. The typhoon narrowly missed Taiwan and Guam but delivered damaging winds and heavy rains to those islands, as well as to parts of China and Japan. When its remnants reached Alaska, the state avoided catastrophic damage comparable to the October 2025 impact of ex‑typhoon Halong, though some areas experienced high winds, heavy rain, and snowfall. According to University of Alaska Fairbanks meteorologist Rick Thoman, Champi was the fourth ex‑typhoon to enter Alaskan waters in 2026, following Bang‑Lang, Dujuan, and Choi‑wan. Thoman noted that roughly 60 ex‑typhoons have impacted Alaska since 1970.

Partyka described 2026 as a “particularly active year” for Pacific tropical cyclones, increasing the likelihood that Alaska would be affected by storms that had transitioned extratropically. He cited the strong El Niño underway in the Pacific as a likely contributor to the heightened activity, noting that El Niño tends to steer storms northward toward Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Japan, and the Korean Peninsula. The Earth Observatory images used in this report were taken by Michala Garrison from DSCOVR EPIC and MODIS data via NASA EOSDIS LANCE and GIBS/Worldview.