Super Typhoon Champi packed sustained winds reported at 180 mph in the western Pacific as the eastern Pacific watched a disturbance that could become Tropical Storm Vance, the first V-named storm there since 2018.
Two ocean basins are active at once. In the west, Super Typhoon Champi kept strengthening after a close pass by Guam. In the east, a disturbance labeled Invest 94E is several hundred miles south of southern Mexico and is expected to become at least a tropical depression within two days.
FOX Weather reported that if the eastern system earns a name, it would be called Vance, the first V-named storm in that basin since 2018.
Warm eastern Pacific waters, tied to a rapidly strengthening El Niño pattern, are helping set the stage. Forecasters are also watching a Tehuantepecer wind event, strong winds racing through the Chivela Pass gap in southern Mexico, that can pile moisture into a disturbance and help it organize.
Champi swept past Guam over the weekend with the force of a Category 4-equivalent storm. Wind gusts reached as strong as 150 mph. The eye passed just 10 miles off the island’s southern tip and avoided a direct destructive landfall.
Guam Governor Lou Leon Guerrero said damage on the island was minimal. The storm then moved quickly west of the southern Mariana Islands.
On Sunday it went through an eyewall replacement cycle, a common process in powerful typhoons when the ring of strongest winds breaks down and rebuilds, and weakened slightly. Coverage then described the storm packing sustained winds of 180 mph by Wednesday, while earlier forecast language had pointed to a possible peak near 165 mph. Super Typhoon Sinlaku was cited at 185 mph as the strongest storm of the year in any basin.
Satellite imagery credited to CIRA captured Champi on Oct. 20, 2026. Video from X user David Hall, carried via Storyful, showed palm trees bent hard in driving rain as the system moved through the region.
Forecast guidance has Champi curving northwest toward Eastern Asia later this week. The Ryukyu Islands, Okinawa, and northern Taiwan are under threat. The storm is expected to weaken gradually as it nears southern Japan, but the core remains dangerous while it stays over open water.
Invest systems are numbered 90 to 99, with an E tag for the eastern Pacific. 94E sits over open water several hundred miles south of southern Mexico. Forecasters expect it to reach at least tropical depression strength in the next two days. A named storm would be Vance.
The FOX Forecast Center said Tehuantepecer winds could “help concentrate moisture and encourage a disturbance to organize into a tropical depression or storm.”
"help concentrate moisture and encourage a disturbance to organize into a tropical depression or storm,"
Track confidence is still low. The same forecast desk put the uncertainty in plain terms:
"Forecast models suggest the system could initially move northwest before turning back toward Mexico, but there is still considerable disagreement on its track and timing,"
That disagreement matters for shipping, offshore operations, and any later threat to the Mexican coast. The next two days will show whether 94E organizes on schedule or stalls as a weaker system.
When the Pacific lights up on both sides at once, the practical move is the same as it always was: watch the water, trust verified wind numbers, and prepare for the track that actually shows up, not the one that looked neat on a map.
