The authors demonstrate how to construct a network from a time series of U.S. hurricane counts and show how it can be used to identify unusual years in the record. The network links years based on a “line‐of‐sight” visibility algorithm applied to the time series plot and is physically related to the variation of hurricanes from one year to the next. The node degree is the number of links connected to a node. The authors find that the distribution of node degree is consistent with a random Poisson process. High hurricane‐occurrence years that are surrounded by years with few hurricanes have many linkages. Of the environmental conditions known to affect coastal hurricane activity, they find years with little sunspot activity during September (peak month of the hurricane season) best correspond with the unusually high linkage years.

The interannual variability in typhoon landfalls over China is investigated using historical and modern records. For the purpose of substantiating and elaborating upon the claim of north to south variation in tropical cyclone activity over China, a north-to-south anti-correlation in yearly activity is confirmed in the historical cyclone records. When cyclone activity over the province of Guangdong is high (low), it tends to be low (high) over the province of Fujian. A similar spatial variation is identified in the modern records using a factor analysis model, which delineates typhoon activity over the southern provinces of Guangdong and Hainan from the activity over the northern provinces of Fujian, Taiwan, Zhejiang, Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Shandong. A landfall index of typhoon activity representing the degree to which each year follows this pattern of activity is used to identify correlated climate variables. A useful statistical regression model that includes sea-level pressure differences between Mongolia and western China and sea-surface temperature (SST) over the northwestern Pacific Ocean during the summer explains 26% of the interannual variability of the landfall index. It is suggested that a stronger than normal north-south pressure gradient increases the surface easterly wind flow over northern China; this, coupled with lower SST over the Pacific, favors typhoons taking a more westerly track toward southern China.

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