On October 2, the United States Central Pacific Hurricane Center started to monitor a weak trough of low pressure that had developed about 1,000 mi (1,610 km) to the southwest of Honolulu, Hawaii.

[3] The system was subsequently classified as a tropical depression by the Japan Meteorological Agency during October 3, as it crossed the International Dateline and moved into the western Pacific Ocean.

[5] Late on October 7, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) eventually issued a Tropical Cyclone Formation Alert for the system, when the TUTT cell was beginning to move to the west-southwest, allowing convection to develop over the consolidating LLCC.

[12][13] Turning northward, the typhoon rapidly intensified and formed a well-defined eye embedded in deep central convection, due to near radial outflow being limited on the southern portion, with a very strong poleward tap into the Westerlies, very low vertical wind shear, and sea surface temperature of 28 °C.

[17] Early on October 12, embedded deeper in the westerlies, the overall structure became more asymmetric with severe elongation and dispersion along the northern peripheries, leading to a weakening trend and prompting the JTWC issuing the final warning to Songda, although the eye remained well-defined until the afternoon.

[18] Moving eastward at 95 km/h (59 mph), shortly after the JMA downgraded Songda to a severe tropical storm early on October 13, the system completed an extratropical transition south of the Aleutian Islands.

[19][20] After the system weakened into a gale-force low and crossed the 180th meridian again in the afternoon, the National Weather Service (NWS) office in Portland dubbed it the Ides of October storm on the next day.

[23] The Ocean Prediction Center (OPC) reported that Post-Tropical Cyclone Songda developed into a hurricane-force low approximately 165 mi (266 km) west of Astoria, Oregon at 11:00 PDT (18:00 UTC), 6 hours before with the central pressure decreasing to 969 mbar (969 hPa; 28.6 inHg).