The 1969 season

Tropical Storm Marie (1969)

Tropical Storm Marie peaked at 50 kt in the Western Pacific between December 18, 1969 and December 21, 1969, with a lowest pressure of 995 mb.

Radar

Reflectivity now over Tropical Storm Marie. Open it to see storms, cones and warnings on the map.

Open the live radar with storms, cones and warnings

Radar mosaic and map layers from NOAA MRMS. Boundaries from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet.

The storm

Basin
Western Pacific
Dates
December 18, 1969 to December 21, 1969
Peak strength
Tropical Storm, 50 kt (58 mph)
Lowest pressure
995 mb (29.38 inHg)
Landfall
No; closest approach 1322 km (821 mi)
Accumulated cyclone energy
1.1
Identifier
WP191969

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
Dec 18, 00:009.7N 146.3E1006 mbMixed
Dec 18, 06:0010.3N 145.3E1002 mbTropical storm
Dec 18, 12:0011.2N 144.3E1006 mbTropical storm
Dec 18, 18:0012.0N 143.5E1004 mbTropical storm
Dec 19, 00:0013.0N 142.6E1006 mbTropical storm
Dec 19, 06:0014.1N 142.0E1004 mbTropical storm
Dec 19, 12:0015.2N 141.7E30 kt1004 mbTropical storm
Dec 19, 18:0016.2N 141.4E40 kt1000 mbTropical storm
Dec 20, 00:0017.1N 141.2E50 kt996 mbTropical storm
Dec 20, 06:0017.9N 141.3E50 kt995 mbTropical storm
Dec 20, 12:0017.8N 142.3E45 kt996 mbTropical storm
Dec 20, 18:0018.3N 143.6E40 kt998 mbTropical storm
Dec 21, 00:0018.9N 145.1E35 kt1002 mbTropical storm
Dec 21, 06:0018.0N 144.4E30 kt1006 mbTropical storm
Dec 21, 12:0019.4N 147.7E1008 mbMixed
Dec 21, 18:0019.5N 148.8E1008 mbMixed

Other Western Pacific storms of 1969

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.