A tropical depression that formed near the equator and tracked north into the East Sea has been described by Vietnamese meteorologists as an unprecedented event in modern weather records.
The system emerged just east of Malaysia, with sustained winds of 39–61 kph on Friday.
By Saturday afternoon, it had moved into the southern East Sea and weakened into a low-pressure zone, with wind speeds dropping below 39 kph.
According to Vietnam’s National Center for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting, the system is expected to drift northeast in the coming hours before gradually weakening and dissipating over the sea.
Mai Van Khiem, director of the center, said the cyclone appears to be the leftover energy of Typhoon Senyar, which crossed from the Indian Ocean through Malaysia into the northwestern Pacific. Storms have occasionally formed below 5 degrees north latitude since 1951, he noted, but they typically move westward.
A system forming near the equator and veering northeast toward the East Sea “may be unprecedented.”
At the same time, Storm Koto was lingering over the central East Sea with maximum winds of 88 kph at around 4 p.m. on Saturday.
Koto is projected to weaken gradually as it moves north and remain several hundred kilometers offshore by Monday.
The East Sea has now seen 15 typhoons and 6 tropical depressions this year, the highest count in three decades. Storms and floods since January have killed 409 people and caused more than VND85 trillion (US$3.2 billion) in damage.
