pagasa – Wiki Philippines

Definition

The List of Philippine Typhoons is the umbrella record of notable tropical cyclones that have struck the Philippines — a curated index organized by era and by ranked toll, not a year-by-year census of every storm. The country it indexes is the world’s most exposed: about 20 tropical cyclones enter the Philippine Area of Responsibility (PAR) in an average year, “about 8 or 9 of them crossing the Philippines,” and more cyclones enter the PAR “than anywhere else in the world,” so the list is less a register of exceptions than the standing national accounting of a recurring hazard. (PAGASA — Tropical Cyclone Information, Wikipedia — List of Philippine typhoons)

The record runs on two naming eras. Storms before 1963 carry no local names, while from 1963 PAGASA has named every cyclone inside the PAR from four rotating lists of 25 alphabetized Filipino names — giving most modern storms a double identity, international name above PAGASA name, that the list preserves; catastrophic local names are retired when a storm causes at least ₱1 billion in damage or 300 deaths. The list’s ranked tables fix the benchmarks of the national disaster record — Haiyan (Yolanda, 2013) as the deadliest and costliest at 6,300 deaths and ₱95.5 billion, Uring (Thelma, 1991) second-deadliest, and a July 1911 cyclone as the wettest, with over 2,210 mm of rain on Baguio — and this wiki’s individual storm entries carry the same record at storm scale. (Wikipedia — List of Philippine typhoons, Wikipedia — Tropical cyclone naming, Philstar — Deadliest, most destructive cyclones)

Identities

Source Type	Identity
Wikipedia	List of Philippine typhoons — the article title (verified this session)
Wikidata	List of Philippine typhoons (Q17005052) — the enwiki article’s connected item (verified this session via the Wikipedia API) (Wikidata — Q17005052)
DBpedia	List_of_Philippine_typhoons — resource verified this session via the data endpoint; sameAs commons “Tropical cyclones in the Philippines” (DBpedia — List of Philippine typhoons)
ProductOntology	N/A
Wiktionary	bagyo — Tagalog noun, “typhoon; tropical cyclone; storm; tempest” (headword verified this session) (Wiktionary — bagyo)
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)	Typhoons (sh85139165) — the subject class of the list (verified this session via id.loc.gov suggest) (LCSH — Typhoons)
MeSH	Cyclonic Storms (D055867) — the descriptor class of the listed storms (verified this session via the NLM lookup) (MeSH — Cyclonic Storms)
NCBI Taxonomy	N/A
AGROVOC	N/A — no cyclones concept verified this session
Google Scholar	list of Philippine typhoons deadliest costliest PAGASA naming retirement Haiyan Yolanda 6300 Uring Thelma 1991 Ormoc bagyo PAR 20 cyclones per year landfall
ConceptNet	N/A
OpenCyc	N/A

Also Known As

The deadliest Philippine typhoons — the ranked deaths table the record carries
The costliest Philippine typhoons — the ranked damage table the record carries
The wettest Philippine typhoons — the rainfall table the record carries

Examples and Analogies

A three-era spine: the record’s unnamed era runs from the prewar storms — the July 1911 cyclone that dropped over 2,210 mm on Baguio in about three and a half days, the wettest on record — through the November 1912 typhoon the article says “practically destroyed” Tacloban; the 1963–1999 era covers the local-name storms this wiki documents one by one, from Kading (Rita, 1978) through Unsang (Ruby, 1988), Yunya (Diding, 1991), the 1995 cluster of Sibyl (Mameng), Zack (Pepang) and Angela (Rosing), and Vicki (Gading, 1998); the 2000-present era runs to Haiyan (Yolanda, 2013) and after. (Wikipedia — List of Philippine typhoons)
One storm, two names, one record: because PAGASA has named PAR storms since 1963 while the Japan Meteorological Agency assigns international names, the list’s entries are double-filed — Angela/Rosing, Kading/Rita, Unsang/Ruby, Yunya/Diding, Sibyl/Mameng, Zack/Pepang, Vicki/Gading, Haiyan/Yolanda — the pairing this wiki’s individual typhoon entries carry in their titles. (Wikipedia — List of Philippine typhoons, Wikipedia — Tropical cyclone naming)
The benchmarks, as ranked: Haiyan (Yolanda, 2013) leads both tables — 6,300 dead and ₱95.5 billion ($2.98 billion); Uring (Thelma, 1991) follows in deaths at 5,101–8,000; Odette (Rai, 2021) follows in cost at ₱51.7 billion; and Uring’s toll was written, as Philstar’s retrospective records, by a storm that “was only a tropical storm with maximum winds of 95 kph.” (Wikipedia — List of Philippine typhoons, Philstar — Deadliest, most destructive cyclones)
Verified record data (each figure attributed to its carrier):
Exposure: average 20 tropical cyclones in the PAR yearly, “about 8 or 9” crossing the country; the peak season July–October, when “nearly 70%” of typhoons develop (PAGASA — Tropical Cyclone Information)
Deadliest (the list’s table): Yolanda (Haiyan) 2013, 6,300; Uring (Thelma) 1991, 5,101–8,000; Pablo (Bopha) 2012, 1,901; “Angela” 1867, 1,800; Winnie 2004, 1,593 (Wikipedia — List of Philippine typhoons)
Deadliest (Philstar’s NSCB-based table, 1947–2011): Uring (Thelma) 5,101 dead, ₱1.045 billion, “even estimated to be at 8,000”; Nitang (Ike) 1984, 1,363; Sendong (Washi) 2011, 1,257; Frank (Fengshen) 2008, 938; Rosing (Angela) 1995, 936, ₱10.829 billion (Philstar — Deadliest, most destructive cyclones)
Costliest: Yolanda ₱95.5 billion; Odette (Rai) 2021, ₱51.7 billion; Glenda (Rammasun) 2014, ₱38.6 billion; Pablo ₱36.9 billion (Wikipedia — List of Philippine typhoons)
Wettest: the July 1911 cyclone, over 2,210 mm (87 in) on Baguio in roughly 3.5 days (Wikipedia — List of Philippine typhoons)
Naming: since 1963, originally female names; four rotating lists of 25, reused every four years; a 10-name auxiliary list, “the first ten of which are published every year”; retirement at ₱1 billion damage and/or 300 deaths, replacement by a name of the same letter (Wikipedia — List of Philippine typhoons, Wikipedia — Tropical cyclone naming)
Variability: August the most active month; 1993 the most active season with nineteen cyclones crossing the country; 1958 the quietest with one (Wikipedia — List of Philippine typhoons)

Usage Scenarios

1. Locating a Storm in the Philippine Record

Researchers use the list as the index that converts a Philippine-place memory — Ormoc 1991, Bicol 1995, Tacloban 2013 — into a named, dated cyclone with its PAGASA-international name pair, and from there into this wiki’s individual storm entries. (Wikipedia — List of Philippine typhoons)

2. Ranking Disasters for Risk Work

Insurers, planners, and economists read the deadliest and costliest tables as the country’s loss history — Haiyan’s 6,300 dead and ₱95.5 billion the ceiling of both — with each figure carried to its table of origin. (Wikipedia — List of Philippine typhoons, Philstar — Deadliest, most destructive cyclones)

3. Teaching the Naming and Retirement System

The list is the working specimen of the two-name system: PAGASA’s four lists of 25 rotating every four years, the auxiliary ten, and the retirement rule — ₱1 billion or 300 deaths — that removed Rosing and Kading from local use, the practice this wiki’s PAGASA entry carries. (Wikipedia — List of Philippine typhoons, Wikipedia — Tropical cyclone naming)

4. Reading Season Variability

Forecasters cite the list’s variability statistics — 1993’s nineteen crossings against 1958’s one — as the envelope around the 20-per-year average, the context for calendars keyed to the July–October peak. (Wikipedia — List of Philippine typhoons, PAGASA — Tropical Cyclone Information)

Strategies

Organize by era, not by year: treat the unnamed pre-1963 storms, the 1963–1999 local-name era, and the 2000-present lists as the record’s natural divisions — the structure that keeps a curated index honest about what it can and cannot name. (Wikipedia — List of Philippine typhoons)
Attribute every toll: the same storm carries different ledgers — Uring at 5,101 in one table, “even estimated to be at 8,000” in the same retrospective — so each figure must ride with its counter, the discipline this wiki’s storm entries practice. (Philstar — Deadliest, most destructive cyclones)
Retire the catastrophic names: apply the ₱1-billion/300-death rule that keeps the rotating lists historically sensitive, replacing each retired name with one of the same letter. (Wikipedia — Tropical cyclone naming)
Plan to the peak, budget to the average: prepare against the July–October window that develops nearly 70 percent of typhoons, but size response capacity to the twenty-cyclone yearly average. (PAGASA — Tropical Cyclone Information)
Use PAR entry, not landfall, as the unit: the record’s statistics count systems entering the Philippine Area of Responsibility — the wider net that turns eight or nine crossings into twenty events a year. (PAGASA — Tropical Cyclone Information)

Security and Safety Measures

Treat the ranked record as risk memory: the deadliest and costliest tables are the country’s institutional memory of what a landfall can cost — the benchmarks, from Haiyan’s surge to Uring’s 95-kph flood, that evacuation doctrine answers. (Wikipedia — List of Philippine typhoons, Philstar — Deadliest, most destructive cyclones)
Respect the retired names as warnings: a retired local name — Rosing, Kading, Yolanda — marks a storm that crossed the damage or death threshold; the retirement list is itself a catalogue of the hazards preparedness must expect again. (Wikipedia — Tropical cyclone naming)
Mind the small-storm hazard: the record’s second-deadliest entry, Uring, was a tropical storm of 95 kph whose Ormoc flooding killed thousands — wind category is not the safety variable. (Philstar — Deadliest, most destructive cyclones)
Follow official bulletins, not the list: the record indexes past storms; live warning is PAGASA’s three-to-twelve-hour bulletin cadence and wind-signal system, carried in this wiki’s PAGASA and Typhoon entries. (PAGASA — Tropical Cyclone Information)
For researchers: date pre-1963 events to their sources — the 1911 Baguio and 1912 Tacloban storms survive in instrumental and press records without systematic naming, so era boundaries mark evidentiary boundaries. (Wikipedia — List of Philippine typhoons)

Historical Context

The list’s deep entries are pre-statistical: a November 1912 typhoon the record says “practically destroyed” Tacloban, with about 15,000 deaths reported for Tacloban and Capiz, and the July 1911 cyclone whose 2,210-mm Baguio deluge remains the rainfall record. PAGASA’s local naming began in 1963 with female names, and the modern record fills in behind it: Kading’s 1978 Angat Dam release and its Supreme Court reckoning; Unsang’s 1988 Luzon crossing and the Doña Marilyn sinking; Yunya’s hour-for-hour coincidence with Pinatubo’s climactic eruption in 1991; Uring’s Ormoc flood the same year; the 1995 cluster of Sibyl’s Cabalantian lahar, Zack’s Visayas crossing, and Angela’s Category 5 landfall; Vicki’s eastward crossing and the Princess of the Orient in 1998 — each carried in this wiki’s storm entries. (Wikipedia — List of Philippine typhoons)

The named era’s ceiling was set on November 8, 2013, when Haiyan (Yolanda) made its Guiuan landfall and took both ranked tables — 6,300 dead, ₱95.5 billion — with Odette (Rai, 2021) second in cost at ₱51.7 billion. Around the record’s edges the naming machinery keeps working — four rotating lists, the auxiliary ten, and retirements, Rosing among them — so the list grows at both ends: its newest entries unnamed until they form, its oldest unnameable because they predate the system. (Wikipedia — List of Philippine typhoons, Wikipedia — Tropical cyclone naming)

Challenges and Controversies

Which Death Count

The record’s deadliest table and the retrospective press tables disagree by construction: Uring (Thelma) appears at 5,101–8,000 in the list, at 5,101 with the note “even estimated to be at 8,000” in Philstar’s NSCB-based table, and Haiyan’s 6,300 official count sits beside the higher early estimates its own aftermath produced — ledgers this wiki’s Typhoon Haiyan entry documents. Every figure is a counting rule, not a fact that reconciles. (Wikipedia — List of Philippine typhoons, Philstar — Deadliest, most destructive cyclones)

The Unnamed Centuries

Before 1963 the record thins: the 1912 Tacloban storm’s reported ~15,000 deaths would exceed every named-era toll including Haiyan’s, yet it lives in the article’s prose, not its ranked tables — an evidentiary asymmetry between the storms the tables rank and the storms the prose carries. (Wikipedia — List of Philippine typhoons)

The Angela Ambiguity

The deadliest table’s “Angela” of 1867 shares its name with the 1995 super typhoon Rosing and the 1989 Rubing — the shared-name conflation this wiki’s Typhoon Angela entry corrects; only the PAGASA name distinguishes the modern storms, and the 1867 storm has none. (Wikipedia — List of Philippine typhoons)

Averages Against Extremes

The 20-per-year average is a planning number, not a promise: the same record holds 1993’s nineteen crossings and 1958’s one, and the deadliest entries — a 95-kph tropical storm among them — argue that the average’s composition matters more than its size. (PAGASA — Tropical Cyclone Information, Philstar — Deadliest, most destructive cyclones)

Tag: pagasa

List of Philippine Typhoons