Super Typhoon Champi strengthens to Category 5 after grazing Guam
It is the ninth Category 5 storm on Earth this year, putting 2026 among the most active years for the strongest storms since 1982.
Super Typhoon Champi strengthened to a Category 5 storm with sustained winds of 265 kilometers per hour (165 mph) on Oct. 18, hours after its center passed about 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Guam, Jeff Masters and Bob Henson reported Sunday for Yale Climate Connections.
Champi struck Guam as a Category 4 storm Saturday, but only the northern edge of its eyewall grazed the island of about 170,000 people, sparing it catastrophic wind damage, the meteorologists wrote. The Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) later upgraded the storm's intensity to Category 5.
An eyewall replacement cycle weakened Champi to about 225 kilometers per hour (140 mph) on Sunday. The JTWC forecast that it would regain Category 5 strength Monday over ocean waters of 29 to 30 degrees Celsius as it tracks west-northwest, possibly approaching Taiwan by the end of the week.
Champi is the ninth Category 5 storm observed worldwide in 2026. If an earlier storm's rating is confirmed, the year would tie for third-most since 1982, compared with an average of 5.3 a year from 1990 to 2025. Masters and Henson noted that studies find a growing share of hurricane-strength storms reaching Category 4 or 5, even though their total number is not increasing.
It is also the second major typhoon to pass within 80 kilometers (50 miles) of Guam this year, after Super Typhoon Bavi in July.
This brief is based on an article published Oct. 18, 2026, by Jeff Masters and Bob Henson in Yale Climate Connections. Read the original: https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2026/10/super-typhoon-champi-intensifies-to-a-cat-5-after-battering-guam/
This article was produced with the assistance of AI tools and reviewed by an editor before publication.
