Just south of Tokyo on September 15, 1947, Typhoon Kathleen made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane. Don’t be fooled by Kathleen’s low intensity, which could lead you to mistakenly think that damage and losses from this storm would be small. On the contrary, Kathleen brought excessive precipitation to the Tone River basin, resulting in rainfall totals between 300 and 800 mm over the course of only two days and yielding the highest flood discharge ever observed. AIR estimates Kathleen’s recurrence today would result in insured losses of about USD 6.6 billion.
Learn about Typhoon Kathleen and the destructive power of slow, weak, and wet storms