At 19:30 UTC, the JTWC issued a Tropical Cyclone Formation Alert despite satellite imagery only detecting a broad, ill-defined low-level circulation, with a minimum barometric pressure of . By 00:00 UTC on July 23, Dvorak intensity estimates reached T2.5/ and a ship to the north of the system reported winds of , which resulted in the JTWC declaring the system a tropical depression. Initially, the depression was tracking west and was forecast by the JTWC to track across the Philippine Islands. This was in agreement with most tropical cyclone forecast models showing the storm track across the archipelago and the turning northward in the general direction of China, although the JTWC eventually shifted the track further north into the Luzon Straits. At 06:00 UTC on July 23, the JTWC upgraded the depression into Tropical Storm Alex, with the JMA doing the same six hours later. Late the next evening, the JMA upgraded Alex to a severe tropical storm as satellite images showed the center of the storm moving under the deep convection after previously being exposed to its northeast. Continuing to slowly intensify, Alex turned northwest. It developed an eye between 15:00 UTC and 18:00 UTC on July 24. The next morning the JTWC declared Alex a typhoon while also estimating that the storm attained its peak intensity of . Upon becoming a typhoon, Alex was located east of the northern tip of Luzon. By this time, most forecast models showed a northward movement east of Taiwan due to a weakness in a subtropical ridge south of Japan and the presence of a surface front across the east coast of Asia. On the evening of July 25, the JMA classified Alex as a typhoon while also reporting that Alex obtained its peak intensity of and a minimum pressure of . Although satellite images continued to depict a warm spot, suggesting the presence of an eye, both the JMA and JTWC estimated that Alex fell below typhoon intensity on July 26; however, according to the JMA, Alex briefly re-intensified back to a typhoon that evening. Alex turned north in response to the aforementioned front, passing east of Taipei. Interaction with the high terrain of Taiwan caused Alex to deflect west, striking Wenzhou as a weakening tropical storm on the evening of July 27. The storm rapidly dissipated over land according to the JTWC, although the JMA continued to track Alex as a minimal tropical storm when it moved back over open water in the Sea of Japan on the evening of July 28.