Super typhoon accelerates, enters PAR today
Super typhoon Mangkhut has accelerated as it remains on track to pummel northern Philippines this weekend, the state weather bureau warned yesterday.
Mangkhut is expected to enter the Philippine area of responsibility this afternoon and will be locally named Ompong.
The US Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) upgraded Mangkhut into a super typhoon yesterday.
The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA)’s 5 p.m. forecast, however, still classified Mangkhut as a typhoon.
PAGASA and JTWC use different standards in classifying cyclones.
PAGASA uses 10-minute average readings of a cyclone’s wind speed, while the JTWC uses one-minute average.
The state weather bureau categorizes a cyclone with maximum sustained winds of 220 kph as a super typhoon.
PAGASA is expected to raise tropical cyclone warning signal number 1 tonight over Northern and Central Luzon areas due to Mangkhut.
“Typhoon Mangkhut will be felt in Northern and Central Luzon beginning Thursday or Friday,” PAGASA weather forecaster Aldczar Aurelio said.
He said Mangkhut is expected to hit Cagayan-Batanes area on Saturday.
As of 3 p.m. yesterday, the eye of the typhoon was spotted at 1,650 kilometers east of Southern Luzon with maximum sustained winds of 185 kph near the center and gustiness of up to 225 kph.
It is expected to move west at 30 kph.
Mangkhut is expected to be 50 kilometers southwest of Calayan, Cagayan on Saturday morning.
Aurelio said Mangkhut is also expected to enhance the southwest monsoon, which will bring scattered light to moderate rains and thunderstorms over Zamboanga Peninsula, Western Visayas and Palawan beginning tomorrow.
The southwest monsoon will also bring light to moderate rains over the Bicol region, the Visayas and Mindanao tomorrow.
Aurelio said Metro Manila would experience cloudy skies with isolated light to moderate rains and thunderstorms due to the southwest monsoon by Friday.
Meanwhile, Tropical Depression Neneng, which has intensified into a storm, left the Philippine area of responsibility yesterday.
PAGASA said the effects of Neneng (international name Barijat) over Northern Luzon were “gradually decreasing,” according to PAGASA.
PAGASA, however, said Batanes, Babuyan Group of Island and Ilocos provinces would continue to experience cloudy skies with scattered rainshower and thunderstorm due to the trough or extension of Neneng.
The weather agency continued to warn residents in these provinces to brace for possible flooding and landslides.
Meanwhile, Metro Manila and rest of the country still have partly cloudy to cloudy skies with isolated rainshowers due to thunderstorms.
As of 3 p.m., Neneng was located at 425 km west of extreme Northern Luzon, packing winds of 85 kph and gustiness of up to 105 kph. It was moving west southwest away from the country, according to Aurelio.
The heavy rains caused by Neneng ground commerce in Batanes to a halt.
Flights were cancelled, leaving several visitors stranded while food supply deliveries were also cancelled.
Provincial disaster officials however did not report any casualty or injury from the storm.
Mangkhut, on the other hand, pummeled through Guam on Monday as it approached the Philippines through the Pacific.
The Philippine Consulate in Guam has not received a report that any of the 43,000 Filipinos living there and 20,000 more in Northern Marianas were adversely affected by the typhoon.
Level up preparations
With the approaching monstrous storm, lawmakers urged state agencies to make the necessary preparations. Leyte Rep. Yedda Marie Romualdez said state agencies and local disaster officials should learn from the lessons of super typhoon Yolanda. Her congressional district was practically wiped out by Yolanda (Haiyan) in 2013.
“It is crucial to highlight that the struggle of our people did not only happen during that very day Haiyan made landfall: it continued even weeks after the typhoon long left our region,” she said.
“Deadlock and delays caused by bureaucratic paralysis, and poor coordination by different agencies rendered Tacloban City and most of the first district of Leyte completely helpless,” she recalled.
Romualdez, who took over the post of her lawyer husband Martin in May 2016, pushed for the approval of House Bill 7968 creating the proposed Department of Disaster Resilience that would replace the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC).
The NDRRMC, for its part, is putting on standby P1.7 billion worth of food packs and other disaster reliefrelated equipment in preparation for the storm. NDRRMC spokesman Edgar Posadas said the agency is on red alert and has intensified its “Yolandalike” preparation.
Posadas said the standby aid would complement the prepositioned food
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