Hurricane Iniki, Tropical Cyclone Heta, Super Typhoon Pongsona, Super Typhoon Chata'an

On September 11, 1992, Hurricane Iniki passed over the Hawaiian island of Kauai with devastating effect. That event led to the founding of Pacific Disaster Center. The tracks of Iniki and three other storms are represented on the graphic below. Each of these storms can be explored by clicking on its track in the same graphic.

Of the many storms that have passed through this region over the years, these four were selected because:

• Hurricane Iniki and Tropical Cyclone Heta were the most damaging storms to make landfall in the affected U.S. territories—Hawaii and American Samoa, respectively—in recorded history.
• Super Typhoon Pongsona adversely impacted more people in Guam than any other known storm.
• Chata'an is of special interest because it passed through the territory only a few months earlier than Pongsona and on a nearly identical track.

The animated representations of these storms are prototypes produced by PDC for inclusion on NOAA's Pacific Region Integrated Climatology Information Products (PRICIP) web page. A table comparing the impacts of each of these storms can be found below. A description of the characteristics of variously named storm types is also included.

Damage Assessments

Name	Duration	Coutries Affected	Pacific Region	Killed	Total Affected	Est. Damage (US$ Million)
Major Hurricane Iniki	Sept 6-13, 1992	Kauai (United States)	Central North Pacific	4	25,000	5000
Super Typhoon Chata'an	Jun 27-Jul 10, 2002	Federated States of Micronesia Guam	Western North Pacific	47	5,492	60.5
Super Typhoon Pongsona	Dec 1-10, 2002	Northern Mariana Islands Guam	Western North Pacific	1	11,400	70
Tropical Cyclone Heta	Dec 29, 2003-Jan 9, 2004	Samoa American Samoa Niue Tonga	Central South Pacific	2	23,762	190

Adapted by PDC from information provided by NOAA and Data from EM-DAT by CRED Copyright 2008.

Storm Classifications

Pacific Region	Storm Classification	Classification Boundaries	Wind Radii
Western North Pacific
	Tropical Depression	< 33 knots	N/A
	Tropical Storm	34-63 knots	34-49 knots
	Typhoon	64-129 knots	50-99 knots
	Super Typhoon	130+ knots	100+ knots
Central North Pacific Eastern North Pacific
	Tropical Depression	< 33 knots	34-49 knots
	Tropical Storm	34-63 knots	50-63 knots
	Hurricane	64-99 knots	64-99 knots
	Major Hurricane	100+ knots	100+ knots
Central South Pacific
	Tropical Depression/Low	> 996 mb	34-49 knots
	Tropical Cyclone	995-956 mb	50-99 knots
	Severe Tropical Cyclone	< 955 mb	100+ knots

Compilation by PDC 2008 based on data from NOAA. See also NOAA PRICIP.

Hurricane