This was typhoon season, and the fleet was near the heart of the region known as “typhoon alley.” The navy was not yet doing any systematic long-range weather reconnaissance flights, and was thus obliged to rely on intermittent reports from aircraft, ships, and submarines. Judging whether a “disturbance” would develop into a full-scale tropical witches’ brew was as much an art as a science. So was predicting the path that a storm would travel.
