The storm's west-southwest path brought the center across the Ryukyu Islands and near Okinawa on August 16 as Kathy began to execute a counterclockwise loop in its track. Two days later, Kathy's winds were estimated by the JTWC to be around 215 km/h (130 mph) near Minamidaitōjima. The typhoon's track made a smaller counterclockwise loop on August 20 before resuming north across the northern Ryukyu Islands. On August 23, Kathy made landfall on Kagoshima Prefecture with winds of 130 km/h (80 mph) and weakened to a tropical storm as it crossed the Seto Inland Sea and southern Honshu. It then curved to the northeast, briefly entering the Sea of Japan and crossing the Noto Peninsula before traversing northern Honshu and emerging into the northern Pacific. On August 25, Kathy transitioned into an extratropical cyclone and continued northeast towards the Aleutian Islands before it was last in the Bering Strait on September 1.