Kong-rey underwent an eyewall replacement cycle after its peak intensity, causing it to weaken into a Category 3 typhoon under unfavorable conditions.

On September 26, a tropical disturbance persisted about 290 km (180 mi) south-southwest of Pohnpei as heavy showers and thunderstorms were developing around the system.

[1] The disturbance would later develop into a tropical depression on September 28 and be marked 33W by the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC), after being over warm sea surface temperatures, which improved consolidation.

[3] The poorly organized system later upgraded to a tropical storm on September 29 according to the JTWC and Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), with the latter assigning it Kong-rey.

[10] The convective bands continued to deepen on October 1,[11] and Kong-rey would later rapidly intensify to reach 1-minute sustained winds of 230 km/h (145 mph), equivalent to Category 4 strength on the Saffir–Simpson scale.

[16] On October 3, Kong-rey entered a pool of cooler sea surface temperatures caused by upwelling generated by Typhoon Trami, weakening the system.

[20] After passing the Ryukyu Islands, Kong-rey weakened into a tropical storm while steering northward, after convection over the center had greatly reduced.

[21] On October 5, Kong-rey steered north-northeastward as a cyclone developed over the storm, which along with a mid-latitude trough, offsets the outflow with high vertical wind shear.

[28] Kong-rey was the second typhoon to hit Okinawa in the same week, bringing strong winds and heavy rain to the local area which resulted in eight injuries and a total of 20,000 households facing power outages.

[31] As Kong-rey entered the Chinese mainland, the National Meteorological Center of China issued a typhoon blue warning signal at 18:00 on October 3.

On the evening of October 5, the coastal area of Zhejiang was affected by Kong-rey, and many tourists visited the shore in Shitang Town, Wenling City.