Heavy rain surprises Cebuanos

CEBU CITY – Cebuanos were caught off guard by the heavy downpour that left a number of areas in Cebu flooded at noon yesterday, just days after weather experts urged the public to prepare for La Niña.

Heavy downpour started at past 11 a.m. yesterday, with areas in the towns of Minglanilla, San Fernando, and the cities of Cebu and Talisay experiencing a sudden gush of floodwater.

The flooding has affected the flow of traffic going towards Southern Cebu.

The heavy downpour came days after weather experts advised the public to prepare for the onset of La Niña, an extremely rainy season, which is expected to hit the country in the second half of this year.

Philippine Astronomical Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) Visayas Chief Oscar Tabada said the onset of rains this year is expected to take place between the third and fourth week of June.

“More water, more rain, flashfloods and landslides to occur when La Niña comes… typhoons will come in September to October,” said Tabada, adding that the public needs to plan ahead, store water, and plant more trees.

He also urged local government units to prepare for any adverse effects the La Niña will bring although he stressed that the episodes of rains experienced in Cebu as of this date are not yet indications of the set-in of the rainy season.

“Cebu had only 25mm rainfall in the past few days. The average normal rainfall for May is 100mm. We still need cloud seeding,” Tabada explained, echoing the call of the provincial government to do cloud seeding to help withered farms around Cebu.

He said there will be two weeks of cloud-seeding operations that will cost 11.5 million.

“If there are seedable clouds, we will do cloud seeding, we cannot do the operation without seedable clouds”, he added.