Exploratory spatial analysis of typhoon characteristics in the North Pacific basin

Abstract This paper analyses the spatial pattern of three tropical storm migratory behaviour parameters – track sinuosity, minimum pressure and duration of intense typhoons. The best-track data of the western North Pacific basin archived by the Regional Specialized Meteorological Center in Tokyo were used. The local Getis–Ord Gi*(d) statistic (where d is distance) was employed in a geographical information system (GIS) environment to identify clusters of hot spots and cold spots of the three parameters. The analysis of storm-track sinuosity identified one dominant hot-spot cluster of sinuously tracking storms far from the continental margins of the North Pacific Ocean, with three small cold-spot clusters of straight-tracking storms relatively close to mainland SE Asia. The analysis of the second and third parameters revealed extensive overlap between the cluster of very intense typhoons (i.e. hot-spot cluster of minimum pressure, mean 926 hPa) and the cluster of long-duration typhoons (i.e. hot-spot cluster of duration at typhoon intensity, mean 5.4 days). The findings suggest that the Philippines and the Northern Marianas Islands are vulnerable to strike by both longer-lived and extremely violent typhoons. Overall, the technique highlights the strong potential for statistical clustering analysis to visualize and understand geospatial patterns in typhoon meteorological characteristics.

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