Typhoon Mawar

Summary

Typhoon Mawar, known in the Philippines as Super Typhoon Betty, was one of the strongest Northern Hemisphere tropical cyclones on record in the month of May, and the strongest tropical cyclone worldwide in 2023. The second named storm, the first typhoon and the first violent typhoon of the 2023 Pacific typhoon season, Mawar originated from an area of low pressure south-southwest of Chuuk Lagoon that developed into a tropical depression on May 19. It fluctuated in intensity and became a tropical storm, after which it intensified into a Category 4-equivalent super typhoon on the Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale. It then underwent an eyewall replacement cycle, then reintensified to attain 1-minute sustained winds of 305 km/h (190 mph) according to the JTWC, becoming a Category 5-equivalent super typhoon. Mawar weakened slightly as it moved around the southwestern edge of the subtropical high that made it steer north of the Philippines and then east of Taiwan. Mawar traversed the Okinawa Islands as a tropical storm, then transitioned into an extratropical cyclone as it moved northeastward out to sea, where it later dissipated east of the Kamchatka Peninsula.