Northwest Pacific typhoons documented by the Philippine Jesuits, 1566–1900 Ricardo Garcı ´a-Herrera, 1 Pedro Ribera, 2 Emiliano Herna ´ndez, 1 and Luis Gimeno 3 Received 5 April 2006; revised 21 July 2006; accepted 5 December 2006; published 22 March 2007. [1] In recent years, the population and the value of properties in areas prone to tropical cyclone (TC) have increased dramatically. This has caused more attention to be placed on the characterization of TC climatologies and the identification of the role that factors such as the main teleconnection patterns may play in TC variability. Due to the timescales involved, the instrumental records have proven too short to provide a complete picture. Thus, documentary and other paleoclimatological techniques have been used to reconstruct TC occurrence. This has been done mostly for the Atlantic basin, whereas in the Pacific basin, fewer attempts have been made. The aim of this paper is to provide a high-resolution chronology of typhoons and intense storms occurring in the Philippine Islands and their vicinity for the period 1566–1900. The chronology is based upon the writings of the Spanish Jesuit Miguel Selga, who produced the original work at the beginning of the 20th century. The sources, reliability, and completeness of the chronology are examined critically. A total of 652 events are included, 524 of which are reported as typhoons, the rest being considered as tropical storms. For each of these classes, the landfall location and the track (when sufficient information is available) have been drawn. This chronology is an indispensable step toward a final and complete typhoon record in the western Pacific basin. Citation: Garcı ´a-Herrera, R., P. Ribera, E. Herna ´ndez, and L. Gimeno (2007), Northwest Pacific typhoons documented by the Philippine Jesuits, 1566 – 1900, J. Geophys. Res., 112, D06108, doi:10.1029/2006JD007370. 1. Introduction [2] In recent years, social interest in tropical cyclones (TCs) has grown steadily. This has been due to a number of factors, above all changes that have occurred in areas prone to TCs. Greater urbanization has lead to increasing popula- tions and dramatically rising value of properties [Dı ´az and Pulwarty , 1997], especially concentrated in the Gulf of Mexico and western Pacific areas. [3] This social awareness has been accompanied by an increase in scientific interest due to the evidence that large- scale oscillations, such as El Nin ˜o-Southern Oscillation [ENSO; Dı ´az and Markgraff, 2000], Quasibiennial Oscilla- tion [QBO; Baldwin et al., 2001], North Atlantic Oscillation [NAO; Hurrell, 1995], or the Madden-Julian Oscillation [MJO; Madden and Julian, 1994], may play a fundamental role in TC occurrence. However, the impact of ENSO is not uniform in the different tropical basins; a warm ENSO episode can lead to increased TC frequency, as in the South Pacific and in the North Pacific between 140°W and 160°E, whereas in the North Atlantic, the Australian region, and the northwest Pacific west of 160°E, ENSO is associated with lower TC frequencies [Landsea, 2000]. An east phase QBO seems to reduce the TC activity in the Atlantic basin, but the mechanism is not completely clear [Gray , 1984]. The NAO does not seem to impact the frequency but the trajectories of the Atlantic hurricanes [Elsner et al., 2000]. The role of the MJO seems to be relevant in the Pacific basin, with an active MJO phase associated with more frequent TC [Sobel and Maloney , 2000]. Additionally, TCs exhibit great vari- ability, with significant millennial, multidecadal, and inter- annual scales [Liu and Fearn, 2000a; Landsea et al., 1996; Elsner and Bossak, 2001]. [4] There is a relatively short record of hurricane inci- dence when compared with the timescales involved. There has been, in recent years, a growing interest in reconstruct- ing the behavior of storms and hurricanes for preinstrumen- tal and even prehistorical times to the point that a new discipline, called paleotempestology, is growing. [5] Previous works have tried to reconstruct hurricanes in the past, mostly from documentary sources. In the Atlantic basin the first records come from the earliest years of the Spanish Colonies. There seems to be little doubt that Christopher Columbus experienced at least two hurricanes, one in 1495 and the other in 1502 [Millas, 1968]. The Spanish were quickly aware of the impact of hurricanes in the Caribbean area and promptly adopted the term ‘‘hur- JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 112, D06108, doi:10.1029/2006JD007370, 2007 1 Departamento Fı ´sica de la Tierra II, Facultad de Ciencias Fı ´sicas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Ciudad Universitaria, Madrid, Spain. 2 Departamento de Sistemas Fı ´sicos, Quı ´micos y Naturales, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Carretera de Utrera, Seville, Spain. 3 Departamento de Fı ´sica, Universidad de Vigo, Facultad de Ciencias de Ourense, Ourense, Spain. Copyright 2007 by the American Geophysical Union. 0148-0227/07/2006JD007370 D06108 1 of 12