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Typhoon Nancy

WMO sustained-wind extreme of 95 m/s on 12 September 1961, tied with Hurricane Patricia.

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Wind speed

Published as 95 m/sPublished as 95 m/sPublished as 95 m/s

WMO maximum sustained surface wind, tied with Hurricane Patricia. 95 m/s (185 kt, 215 mph) on 12 September 1961.

OfficialWorld Meteorological Organization (opens source in a new tab)

In context

  • 3.3× a cheetah's timed top speedSourced · Cheetah, 29 m/s. Sharp 1997, mean of three timed runs over 201.2 m
  • 1.0 football fields a secondConstant · American football field, 100 yd (91.44 m)
  • London to New York in 16 h 17 minConstant · London to New York, 5,570 km great-circle

Worked out from the sourced figure above, which stays the ranked number.

Mechanism

Why it's so fast

Typhoon Nancy is ranked as a sustained wind, the speed held for the interval the record requires. A gust that spikes and vanishes is a different list.

  1. A pressure difference

    The tighter and deeper the low, the faster the air moves to fill it. Terrain and the storm's structure decide what an anemometer on the ground actually records.

  2. Held, not spiked

    Typhoon Nancy's figure had to keep going for the sustained-wind interval. That is usually lower than the peak gust in the same storm, and the two are not averaged.

Nearby on this list: Hurricane Patricia.

Provenance

Every measurement

Claimed, measured and official figures side by side, each with its source. The ranked figure is marked.

  1. 342km/h213mph95m/s185knRanked figure

    WMO maximum sustained surface wind, tied with Hurricane Patricia. 95 m/s (185 kt, 215 mph) on 12 September 1961.

    Official
    World Meteorological Organization (opens source in a new tab)

Reference

Specs

Quantity
Maximum sustained surface wind
Speed
95 m/s
Basin
Northwest Pacific
Date
12 September 1961

Context

Background

The July 2024 and July 2025 WMO extremes tables both print Typhoon Nancy at 95 m/s (185 knots, 215 mph) on 12 September 1961, tied with Hurricane Patricia. The ranked figure is that archive value.

Nancy is a 1961 sustained-wind estimate in the archive, not a 3-second anemometer gust. It shares this list with Patricia because the quantity matches. It does not share the gust list with Cyclone Olivia.

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