A series of weather disturbances are rippling through East Asia this week, with former Typhoon Dolphin leaving a trail of disrupted daily life after making landfall along China’s eastern coast over the weekend.
The storm first slammed into the coastal city of Taizhou, located in China’s Zhejiang Province, Sunday evening, packing maximum sustained winds of 151 kilometers per hour (93 mph) as it came ashore. Before hitting the Chinese mainland, Dolphin already drenched northern Taiwan with heavy downpours over the weekend, laying the groundwork for widespread flooding once it moved inland. After landfall, the system weakened to a tropical storm, bringing sustained torrential rain to eastern China on Monday that quickly overwhelmed local drainage systems and triggered flash flooding in multiple low-lying areas.
As of Monday morning, Taiwan’s Central Weather Administration recorded maximum sustained winds of just 65 kph (40 mph) within the storm system, confirming a steady weakening trend. China’s national meteorological service added that Dolphin is tracking northwest at a speed of 15 to 20 km per hour (9 to 12 mph), and is projected to continue losing intensity until it fully dissipates over inland China. Even in its weakened state, however, the storm poses serious hazards: national and local authorities have issued urgent warnings for elevated risks of catastrophic river flooding and destructive landslides across mountainous and low-lying regions of eastern China.
Local response teams have already been deployed to address storm damage. State broadcaster CCTV reported that emergency crews in Yueqing, a coastal city within Zhejiang, launched search and rescue operations to extract residents trapped in water-submerged homes, while also working to clear storm debris including fallen broken tree branches from public streets to restore access for emergency vehicles.
The proactive steps taken by Chinese authorities ahead of the storm’s arrival mitigated potential casualties: more than 300,000 residents in high-risk areas were preemptively relocated to emergency shelters before Dolphin made landfall. Major transportation hubs also pre-emptively suspended services, with both of Shanghai’s major international airports canceling more than 1,300 incoming and outgoing flights to avoid putting passengers and crew at risk.
The impacts of Dolphin have not been limited to China and Taiwan. The storm system also amplified seasonal monsoon rainfall across the Philippines, worsening already wet conditions and sparking flash floods and deadly landslides in vulnerable areas across the archipelago.
Meanwhile, a second tropical system is gearing up to impact East Asia this week. Tropical Storm Chan-hom is currently tracking toward Japan’s Pacific coastline, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency. As of Monday morning, the storm carried maximum sustained winds of 83 kph (51 mph), and forecasters project it will intensify slightly before making landfall sometime between Tuesday and Wednesday.