By Ethan BrooksSatellite imagery released on November 3, 2026, highlights an exceptionally active Pacific typhoon season 2026 driven by strong El Nino ocean warming. Since April, the Northwest Pacific Basin has generated 26 named tropical cyclones, culminating in late October with the rare annular structure of Super Typhoon In-fa and the extratropical transition of Typhoon Champi toward Alaska.
Instruments aboard the Deep Space Climate Observatory and the Terra satellite captured both storm systems simultaneously on October 29 and October 30, 2026. While Super Typhoon In-fa churned west of the Mariana Islands—becoming the fifth typhoon to affect that archipelago in 2026—the remnants of Typhoon Champi swept into the Bering Sea as an expansive comma-shaped extratropical cyclone.
Earlier in its track across the western Pacific, Champi reached peak sustained winds near 300 kilometers per hour (185 miles per hour), ranking among the most powerful cyclones of the year. After brushing Taiwan, Guam, China, and Japan with heavy rain and damaging gusts, the system curved northeastward into subarctic waters.
The Rare Physics of Annular Tropical Cyclones
Meteorologists analyzing Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer data noted that Super Typhoon In-fa developed a symmetric, circular cloud ring surrounding a wide, clear eye, lacking the sprawling spiral rainbands typical of standard typhoons. Forecasters classify these doughnut-shaped systems as annular tropical cyclones, a rare subset representing just 4 percent of western North Pacific storms.
According to climatological studies, annular storms feature eyes averaging 45 kilometers (30 miles) wide—nearly double the 25-kilometer average of conventional typhoons—and resist weakening even when encountering cooler water or wind shear. Meanwhile, Gary Partyka, a meteorologist at the Goddard Space Flight Center, explained that Champi’s transition from a warm-core tropical typhoon into a cold-core extratropical storm dramatically expanded its wind field across the Bering Sea.
Climatologist Rick Thoman of the University of Alaska Fairbanks documented several notable records during this autumn’s storm sequence:
- Champi became the fourth ex-typhoon to enter Alaskan waters in 2026, following Bang-Lang in August, Dujuan in September, and Choi-wan in early October.
- Four Alaskan ex-typhoon impacts in a single year surpassed the three autumn storms recorded during the strong El Nino years of 1997 and 2015.
- Approximately 60 former western Pacific typhoons have reached the Alaska region since satellite tracking began in 1970.
How El Nino Redirects Western Pacific Storm Tracks
When tropical cyclones undergo extratropical transition, they lose their warm, moisture-driven cores and instead draw kinetic energy from sharp temperature contrasts between colliding warm and cold air masses. Although Western Alaska experienced snow, rain, and high winds from Champi’s remnants, coastal communities avoided the severe storm-surge devastation caused by ex-typhoon Halong in October 2025.
Atmospheric researchers attribute the 2026 surge in high-latitude storm tracks—which began when Super Typhoon Sinlaku struck Micronesia and Guam in April—to warmer-than-normal equatorial Pacific waters associated with the ongoing El Nino pattern. During strong El Nino episodes, tropical cyclones in the Northwest Pacific tend to recurve northward toward Guam, Japan, and the Bering Sea rather than tracking straight west into Southeast Asia.
Readers monitoring global weather extremes in our Top News section can expect continued satellite tracking as winter storm tracks intensify across the North Pacific.
