Typhoon Rita (1972)

Typhoon Rita (Gloring)

Category 5 (Saffir–Simpson scale)
Satellite image of Typhoon Rita intensifying on July 9 west of the Mariana Islands
Formed	July 5, 1972
Dissipated	July 27, 1972
Highest winds	1-minute sustained: 270 km/h (165 mph)
Lowest pressure	911 hPa (mbar); 26.9 inHg
Fatalities	377 total
Damage	$445 million (1972 USD)
Areas affected	Philippines, Japan (Kyushu and the Ryukyu Islands), Taiwan, South Korea, China (East, Northeast, and North)
Part of the 1972 Pacific typhoon season

Typhoon Rita, known in the Philippines as Typhoon Gloring, was a powerful and one of the longest-lived Western Pacific tropical cyclone on record, traversing the basin along an erratic path for 22 days. The second of four simultaneously developing storms, Rita was first identified to the southeast of Guam on July 5, 1972.

In early July 1972, conditions across the western Pacific were highly favorable for tropical cyclogenesis. Enhanced by an El Niño event, surface westerlies traversed the region south of an east-west near-equatorial trough that extended from east of the Philippines to well east of the Marshall Islands. On July 3, conditions in the upper troposphere over the basin underwent significant changes with two upper-level troughs developing in the midlatitudes; of note was one which moved southward from Japan. By July 5, four distinct disturbances had organized along the near-equatorial trough; however, limited data made further analysis on these systems difficult. The precursor to Rita specifically was situated to the southeast of Guam at this time. The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) classified the system as a tropical depression at 12:00 UTC that day.

On July 6, the precursor depression to Rita was invigorated as it interacted with a cutoff low to its north. Simultaneously, a subtropical ridge rapidly built on either side of the cutoff low. Within a complex upper-level environment, favorable outflow was able to form over the system and enhance convective development. It was estimated that the depression attained tropical storm-status by 00:00 UTC on July 7 while located south of Guam. Moving west and later northwest, the storm steadily intensified to typhoon status by 12:00 UTC the following day. Increasingly vigorous outflow, attributed to the cutoff low near Japan, enabled continued deepening of the cyclone over the next two days. Rita ultimately attained its peak intensity on July 11 as a Category 5-equivalent typhoon on the modern-day Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale with sustained winds of 270 km/h (165 mph) and a barometric pressure of 911 mbar (hPa; 26.90 inHg). At this time, the storm displayed a well-defined 37 km (23 mi) diameter eye