Manila: Tropical cyclone Jelawat has been elevated to the category of ‘typhoon’ after it gained strength and continued to move to the north of the Philippines.
According to the Philippines Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa), Jelawat, locally referred to as ‘Lawin’ was located around 330km East of Borongan, eastern Samar, as of 10am on Sunday.
“Jelawat has wind speeds of 120km/h near its centre and gusts reaching up to 150km/h,” Pagasa said. The weather disturbance had been previously categorised as a storm, but as it gained strength on Saturday forcing the weather agency to upgrade to to a typhoon.
Weather forcasters said the typhoon is expected to make landfall in Batanes, the Philippines’ northernmost island group, before making its way to Taiwan on Thursday or Friday.
The typhoon is expected to affect a 600km area and bring light to moderate rains in western Visayas and Mindanao. It will also affect the southwest monsoon.
“Strong to gale force winds are expected to affect the eastern seaboards of southern Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao,” Pagasa said.
Earlier, rains caused by the presence of Jelawat forced Pagasa to issue a flood alert to residents living in the vicinity of four major dams in central Luzon.
According to Pagasa, the spill gates of the dams Angat and Ipo in Bulacan, Binga in Benguet and Magat in Isabela are continuously releasing water as their reservoirs breached normal levels after incessant rain.
On September 26, 2009, heavy rains caused by typhoon Ketsana (Ondoy) caused unprecedented flooding in Metro Manila and surrounding provinces in central Luzon that resulted in more than a 100 deaths and property damage worth billions of pesos.
