Abstract:Based on the 1949-2006 Tropical Cyclone Yearbooks and the new tropical cyclone (TC) grade standards, a climatological analysis of landfalling TC over China is carried out. Results show that, out of all landfalling TC, severe tropical storm (STS) takes up a maximal proportion of 38.5%, then typhoon (TY), tropical storm (TS), severe typhoon (STY) and super typhoon (SuperTY). The 59% STY and 67% SuperTY land over Taiwan Island. Guangdong is the province that is attacked mostly frequently by TCs, but scarcely by STYs and SuperTYs. The most active period for TCs is from July to September with the strongest mean intensity in August and September. There are obvious interannual and interdecadal changes in the frequency of landfalling TCs, with a weak decrease tendency in the total landfalling TCs and an increase tendency in those categorized as TYs, STYs and SuperTYs. Under the background of global warming, the landfalling TCs, averagely, show a trend of northward movement in the formation source region and weak decrease in intensity in recent several decades. Since the beginning of the 2000s, there is an obvious southward movement in the formation source region and a significant increase in mean intensity for landfalling TCs, especially for the annual maximum central wind and minimal central pressure. There is no obvious change in the mean latitude of landfalling location for all TCs in the past decades, while the annual northernmost latitude moves southwards, mostly below 35°N since the middle 1970s.
