El Niño 2026 makes Pacific burn as typhoons batter East Asia

Wild weather is a regular reality for coastal residents in the Philippines, Taiwan, China, and Japan, but recent months have brought extraordinary turbulence. A wave of intense storms, exacerbated by the El Niño weather pattern, has claimed dozens of lives, shut down major airports, and devastated crops and infrastructure across East Asia.

In October, nearly all of Taiwan went into lockdown mode as a massive storm roared toward its northeastern coast. Boasting winds of 295 kilometers per hour, Typhoon Champi was equivalent to a category five hurricane, carrying enough destructive force to flatten homes and whip up dangerous coastal waves.

Fortunately, the storm skirted past Taiwan without making direct landfall, though it drenched the island with heavy rain. The impact reached far and wide, resulting in hundreds of cancelled flights in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan. In the Philippines' Batanes archipelago, coastal highways were closed due to crashing waves, while 15,000 homes lost power in Japan's southern Okinawa islands.

Stock photo for illustration only, not from the actual event

El Niño is a natural climate phenomenon where warm waters pool in the eastern Pacific, altering wind patterns and driving extreme weather worldwide. In June, Japan witnessed two storms—Typhoon Mekkhala and Severe Tropical Storm Higos—racing toward its eastern coast simultaneously, forcing one million people to evacuate. By July, Tropical Storm Narra grazed China's southern coast along Guangxi, submerging villages and displacing tens of thousands.

August brought Super Typhoon Dolphin, which churned across the Pacific for 16 days before slamming into eastern China and causing heavy floods and casualties. Later that month, Typhoon Saudel made landfall across three southeastern Chinese cities within a week, paralyzing transport networks.