As you can see from the image above, courtesy of the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, we've got a Cat 5 right now in the Pacific. But it isn't a typhoon, because it didn't form in the western North Pacific. Neither did it form in the eastern North Pacific (the "I' storm from that basin this year is Ileana). Rather, Wikipedia has this to say about Ioke: "It is the first tropical storm to form in the Central Pacific since 2002...Overnight between August 24 and August 25, Ioke strengthened into a Category 5 storm, the first storm with a name from the Central Pacific list to reach that intensity."
This seems consistent with my admittedly limited understanding, i.e., that the Central Pacific isn't really a very active hurricane basin (certainly not as a site of actual hurricane formation, although storms may well drift into the area). So, Ioke seems noteworthy to me. But I don't know how much to make of it.
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If this is really highly unusual (I know next to nothing about Central Pacific hurricanes), it's just another of these apparantly large deviations from historical levels of activity, my unofficial list:
2004-2005 Atlantic seasons. esp 2005
2005 Brasil hit by an apparent hurricane even though S Pacific hurricanes aren't supposed to happen.
2005:2006 Australian season, seems they had at least three cat 5's.
Last weeks "worst in 50years" typhoon to hit China.
If these are really all (or mostly) five sigma events, then any statistician would conclude that something is going on.
Brazil was hit in 2004, and it was a south atlantic hurricane.
well, I live in Taiwan, I am willing to know is there any other hurr/typhoon move westward to west-northern pacific zone (even hit land) that formatted in central/eastern pacific zone inthe record before?
Oh,I found the answer by myself.In 2002,2 central-pacific hurr/typhoon-s moved westward across the artifical 180' line ,it seems unworthy to feel like a big deal.By the way, China said they were crashed by a 50years-big-one, but the truth is most strong typhoons will undermined by Taiwan's land and mountain whatever they were through the island or just pass by the side,especially higher mountain near the eastern side of taiwan.They look like knieves to cut the circulation of the big storms.This typhoon far passed the northern part of Taiwan,went w-n-w and directly hitted Zhejiang by chance.Aftermath,China's media is getting market-oriented...I think you know what I mean. And the result is what you saw.