Typhoon Melor (2015)

Typhoon Melor (Nona)

Typhoon (JMA scale)
Category 4 (Saffir–Simpson scale)
Typhoon Melor at peak intensity near Samar on December 14
Formed	December 10, 2015
Dissipated	December 17, 2015
Highest winds	10-minute sustained: 175 km/h (110 mph) 1-minute sustained: 230 km/h (145 mph)
Lowest pressure	935 hPa (mbar); 27.61 inHg
Fatalities	42 confirmed
Damage	$136.4 million (2015 USD)
Areas affected	Caroline Islands, Philippines
Part of the 2015 Pacific typhoon season

Typhoon Melor, known in the Philippines as Typhoon Nona, was a powerful tropical cyclone that struck the Philippines in December 2015. The twenty-seventh named storm and the eighteenth typhoon of the annual typhoon season, Melor killed 42 people and caused ₱6.45 billion (US$136.4 million) in damage.

The typhoon began developing on December 7 as a low-pressure area 120 km (75 mi) of Chuuk. Soon, it intensified into a tropical depression on December 10, and then into a tropical storm south of Yap, and was named Melor. The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAG-ASA) initially decided to name Melor as "Nonoy", but due to political reasons, it was named "Nona" instead. On December 13, Tropical Storm Melor (Nona) became a typhoon, and made its first landfall on Northern Samar. The typhoon made several landfalls in Sorsogon, Burias Island, Romblon, and Oriental Mindoro, before weakening into a tropical storm. It turned southward on entering the South China Sea (West Philippine Sea) before weakening into a tropical depression and dissipating in the Sulu Sea.

During December 10, the Japan Meteorological Agency started to monitor a tropical depression, that had developed about 665 km (415 mi) to the south of Guam. The system was located within a favorable environment for further development, with low vertical wind shear and sea surface temperatures of between 29–30 °C (84–86 °F).

moreover, the JMA started to issue tropical cyclone warnings to the system on the same day, expecting a tropical storm within 24 hours. Based on a developing low-level circulation center (LLCC) obscured by the mid-level deep convection in an area of strong westward upper-level diffluence and moderate easterly vertical wind shear, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) issued a Tropical Cyclone Formation Alert (TCFA) to the system early on December 11. The JMA, however, upgraded the tropical depression to a tropical storm immediately after issuing that TCFA and named it Melor, when the storm was only about 50 km (31 mi) south of Yap. In the afternoon, the JTWC upgraded it to a tropical depression and designated it as 28W, just six hours before the center upgraded Melor to a tropical storm that was tracking west-northwestward along the southern periphery of a deep-layered subtropical ridge.