Japan Typhoon Season 2026: Climatology, Live Trackers, and What Actually Cancels

Quick Facts

The 30-year baseline: when typhoons actually form

The most useful question is not “is there a typhoon coming,” but “is this the part of the calendar where one is likely.” JMA publishes the 1991–2020 normal — the average count of tropical cyclones forming in the Northwest Pacific each month over a 30-year window. The pattern is heavily skewed toward late summer.

July through October account for roughly 18 of the 25 cyclones formed in a typical year. Winter and early spring are quiet enough that most travel guides simply ignore typhoons as a January-through-April risk; the average for those four months combined is 1.5 cyclones, and very few of them ever turn toward Japan.

Formation peaks in August, but damage peaks in September

August produces more storms (5.7 on average) than September (5.0), but the damage record looks almost the opposite. JMA’s list of typhoons that caused major damage in Japan is dominated by September strikes. The reason is meteorological: by September, the autumn rain front (akisame zensen) is hovering over the Japanese archipelago, and an incoming typhoon’s outer rainbands ride along the front. The result is heavy, prolonged rainfall — often well inland, well away from the storm centre — and the worst flooding events tend to be September events. If your trip is flexible and you want the lowest weather risk, August is usually the busier-but-shorter-event month and September is when the bigger systems hit.

Where the storms hit hardest

Typhoon risk is not distributed evenly across Japan. Okinawa and the Amami Islands take the brunt of approaches every year, while the main island regions see roughly equal exposure to one another but at much lower frequency.

Average approaches per year, 1991–2020. Source: JMA.

Two practical takeaways. First: a Tokyo or Kyoto trip in August or September faces three to four typhoon approaches across the whole season — a real but manageable risk, not the constant threat it sometimes sounds like. Second: an Okinawa trip in the same window is much riskier. JMA’s normals give the Okinawa region 2.2 approaches in August and 1.9 in September, roughly one every two weeks. If you are travel-insurance-minded, that’s where to focus the hedging.

What 2025 looked like, and what 2026 has shown so far

Recent seasons help calibrate expectations. The 2025 Pacific typhoon season produced 27 named storms, 13 of which reached typhoon strength. By accumulated cyclone energy (a standard measure that combines storm count, intensity and duration), 2025 was below average, and only one storm — Typhoon Ragasa — reached super typhoon strength. The first named storm did not form until June 11, the fifth-latest start to a season on record.

2026 has done the opposite. The first named storm, Nokaen, formed on January 15 — the first January named storm in the Pacific basin since Pabuk in 2019 — and the season’s first typhoon, Sinlaku, reached typhoon status on April 10 and then super typhoon strength on April 12. An early start does not mechanically mean a busier total season; the relationship between early-season activity and late-season activity in the Northwest Pacific is weak. But it is a season worth watching attentively.

By early July the 2026 season had produced ten named storms, three of them typhoons; by mid-August that count had climbed to about 17, and it reached 26 when Surigae formed on 23 September and 29 on 5 October, when Koguma formed and Nolo moved in from east of the date line — and June was the first month to bring cyclones to Japan itself. Severe Tropical Storm Jangmi made landfall in Wakayama on June 3; Typhoon Mekkhala, briefly a Category-4-equivalent and one of the strongest June typhoons in years, brushed the country in the last week of the month; and Tropical Storm Higos passed south-east of the Izu Peninsula and close to the southern tip of the Boso Peninsula early on June 27, which JMA counts as an approach, not a landfall. Severe Tropical Storm Chan-hom made landfall on the Ibaraki coast on the evening of 11 August, the second landfall of 2026 in JMA’s preliminary count. Typhoon Dujuan (No. 25) passed east of Tokyo overnight on 21–22 September, close enough to put the capital inside its area of winds of 15 m/s or more, and then moved away over the Pacific; JMA reclassified it as an extratropical low far to the east of Japan on the evening of 22 September. Surigae (No. 26) then approached the Okinawa region, strengthening into a very strong typhoon by the time it neared the Daito Islands: at 4 a.m. on 28 September it was about 140 km north-west of Minami-Daito, and flights were being cancelled. On 20 October, Typhoon Champi (No. 30), by then a violent typhoon, was heading for the Sakishima Islands — a reminder that the season does not stop on a calendar date. For current activity near Japan, see the live box at the top of this page. As always, the count matters less than the timing: the disruption that reaches your trip comes down to whether a single system lines up with your dates.

Live tracking: the sources Japanese forecasters watch

If you have a trip in the August–October window, the question is not “what does the climatology say” but “is anything moving right now.” Four sources give you 90% of what a domestic Japanese forecaster watches:

What actually cancels (and when)

One of the most useful things to know in advance: ferries, airlines and railways can all announce cancellations or planned suspensions the day before or earlier, not only at the last minute. For railways, Japan’s transport ministry has published a model timeline for planned suspensions (keikaku unkyu): in its example, a possible suspension is flagged about 48 hours before it begins and the detailed plan about 24 hours before. Those hours are examples, not a guaranteed notice period, and exactly which services stop, and when, depends on the storm’s track.

Two recurring patterns are worth flagging because they trip up first-time visitors. First: a typhoon with its centre well offshore can still suspend the Tokaido Shinkansen if the wind sensors along the track exceed thresholds. The trains stop because of the side wind on the embankment, not because the storm is overhead. Second: ferry cancellations cascade. As of September 2026, there is no passenger ferry between Okinawa Main Island and Ishigaki (the latest scheduled-route list on Naha Port’s website, dated 1 February 2025, shows only cargo ships on that run, so you fly), but if the high-speed boats from Ishigaki to Iriomote or Taketomi, or the Kagoshima–Amami–Naha ferry, cancel on Tuesday, the next sailings can be cancelled too. If your itinerary depends on a Yaeyama, Amami or Ogasawara sailing, build in at least one buffer day, and more for Ogasawara, where the ship does not sail daily.

An exact cancellation threshold in km/h does not exist as a single published figure. Each carrier publishes its own internal criteria — wind speed at the relevant airport or track segment, sustained vs gust, plus precipitation thresholds. The public-facing decision arrives as “this flight is cancelled” rather than “wind exceeded X” — which is why the carrier status page is the only authoritative source within 48 hours of a storm.

Lock in flexible bookings before you go

The biggest single thing you can do for typhoon-season travel is book the right way. Refundable rates and free-cancellation hotels eliminate 90% of the cancellation pain even before a storm forms. Specifically:

Pre-trip checklist if your dates fall in typhoon season

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