Tropical Storm Greg was a Pacific tropical cyclone that formed at an unusually low latitude in the South China Sea, and became the worst tropical cyclone to affect Malaysia since reliable records began. The last storm of the 1996 Pacific typhoon season, Greg formed on December 24 on the same two monsoon troughs that also spawned Tropical Storm Fern in the basin and cyclones Ophelia, Phil and Fergus in the Southern Hemisphere. The storm headed an east-southeastward track and despite an unfavorable environment for intensification, Greg strengthened to a tropical storm on Christmas Day. It then reached its peak intensity shortly, with maximum sustained winds of 85 km/h (50 mph) and a minimum barometric pressure of 1002 hPa before making landfall along the northern portion of the Malaysian sta