Western Pacific Typhoon Season "Unusually Harsh" - AFP

[hatrack]

Global warming is contributing to an unusually harsh typhoon season in China that started around a month early and has left thousands dead or missing, government officials and experts say. "The natural disasters caused by typhoons in our country have been many this year," the head of the China Meteorological Administration, Qin Dahe, said in recent comments on his organisation's website.

"Against the backdrop of global warming, more and more strong and unusual climatic and atmospheric events are taking place. "The strength of typhoons are increasing, the destructiveness of typhoons that have made landfall is greater and the scope in which they are travelling is farther than normal."

The vice minister of the Ministry of Water Resources, E Jingping, also spoke last week about the unusual ferocity, frequency and early arrival of typhoons in China this year. Jingping said the typhoon season in China normally starts around July 27, but this year the first typhoon hit the southern province of Guangdong on May 18.

"This is the earliest typhoon to hit Guangdong since 1949," he said in a speech. "The typhoons have come earlier this year, they are strong, the area that they hit is wide and the length of time they last is long."

EDIT

http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=126&art_id=qw1155540063569B254

[uppityperson]

1. summary about Atlantic season, Jeff Masters/wunderground

Summary
The relatively quiet hurricane season we've been enjoying is not going to last. A very active period will start, as soon as the atmosphere destabilizes a bit more. If one believes the long-range 2-week outlook from the GFS model, the current quiet period should last another 4-12 days. Around August 21, I expect it will appear that a switch has been thrown, and the Atlantic will be very active indeed. Expect our first hurricane in the Atlantic by August 26, and a very active September. However, I do expect we will get many recurving storms that will miss land, and that this hurricane season will be similar to the ones we experienced in 1995-2003.
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=462&tstamp=200608

[hatrack]

2. Yeah, I kind of figured it was too quiet to last much longer over here

Early times still as far as the Atlantic hurricane season is concerned.