The 1948 season

Tropical Storm Olga (1948)

Tropical Storm Olga peaked at 55 kt in the Western Pacific between October 15, 1948 and October 19, 1948, and made landfall.

Track and intensity

The whole track of Tropical Storm Olga, colored by strength, with the other storms of the 1948 season in the same basin behind it, and its wind and pressure hour by hour. Every fix is in the track table below.

Open the live map with storms, cones and warnings

The storm

Basin
Western Pacific
Dates
October 15, 1948 to October 19, 1948
Peak strength
Tropical Storm, 55 kt (63 mph)
Landfall
Yes
Accumulated cyclone energy
2.9
Identifier
WP201948

Deaths and damage

No source this site reads publishes a machine-readable casualty or damage figure for a storm of this era. The National Hurricane Center’s season tables begin in 1995 and carry deaths and damage only from 2005 in the Atlantic and 2020 in both basins; the US Storm Events record begins in 1996.

Track

Time (UTC)PositionWindPressureStatus
Oct 15, 18:0015.3N 120.0ETropical storm
Oct 16, 00:0015.7N 119.4ETropical storm
Oct 16, 06:0016.1N 118.7ETropical storm
Oct 16, 12:0017.0N 117.7E50 ktTropical storm
Oct 16, 18:0017.0N 116.8E50 ktTropical storm
Oct 17, 00:0017.0N 115.9E50 ktTropical storm
Oct 17, 06:0017.0N 115.1E50 ktTropical storm
Oct 17, 12:0017.1N 114.2E55 ktTropical storm
Oct 17, 18:0017.2N 113.4E50 ktTropical storm
Oct 18, 00:0017.2N 112.7E55 ktTropical storm
Oct 18, 06:0017.3N 111.9E55 ktTropical storm
Oct 18, 12:0017.3N 111.0E50 ktTropical storm
Oct 18, 18:0017.4N 110.2E40 ktTropical storm
Oct 19, 00:0017.5N 109.0E40 ktTropical storm
Oct 19, 06:0018.0N 109.5E35 ktTropical storm
Oct 19, 12:0018.0N 110.0E30 ktTropical storm
Oct 19, 18:0017.5N 108.0E20 ktTropical storm

Other Western Pacific storms of 1948

What this means

A best track is the record a warning agency settles on after the storm, not what it said at the time: position, maximum sustained wind and central pressure every six hours, revised against every observation that came in later. Category is the Saffir-Simpson scale, which runs from Category 1 at 64 kt to Category 5 at 137 kt and reads wind only, so it says nothing about surge or rain. Accumulated cyclone energy adds up the square of the wind through the storm's life, so it counts strength and duration together.

Sources

Storm history from NOAA NCEI’s International Best Track Archive for Climate Stewardship (IBTrACS), which merges the official best track of every warning agency. Live storms, cones, watches and warnings from the National Hurricane Center and the Central Pacific Hurricane Center. Archived radar from NOAA’s Level II archive.