In the 2026 summer‑autumn season, Typhoons Bavi (No.9), White Dolphin (No.13)
and Sader (No.18) made successive landfalls in Kanmen subdistrict, Yuhuan,
Taizhou, Zhejiang, a new meteorological record for East China coastal landfalls.
Meteorologists attribute the clustering to the rapid development of El Niño:
anomalous warming in the central‑eastern equatorial Pacific has altered typhoon
genesis and steering. In El Niño years the western Pacific subtropical high
tends to be stronger and displaced northward, guiding typhoons on northwest
tracks toward the East China coast. This season most storms avoided Taiwan’s
topographic blocking and thus retained strength at landfall. Historical data
show about 15 typhoons that landed in Zhejiang occurred in El Niño development
years (roughly one‑third); among the most damaging Zhejiang storms on record,
1997’s Winnie and 2006’s Saomai also occurred in El Niño years.
