MANILA, Philippines - A tropical storm off the Caroline Islands is expected to enter the Philippine area of responsibility this afternoon but government meteorologists said it was still too far to directly affect the country.
The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) said the tropical storm, to be named “Pepeng” once it enters Philippine territory, was spotted some 1,280 kilometers east of Mindanao with maximum sustained winds of 65 kilometers per hour as of 5 p.m. yesterday.
Pagasa said the weather disturbance was moving west northwest at 11 kph.
“This disturbance is expected to enter the Philippine area of responsibility tomorrow today afternoon and to track west northwest in the general direction of northern Luzon-Taiwan area,” Pagasa said in a statement.
“However, it is still too far to affect any part of the country.”
Pagasa administrator Prisco Nilo said a “worst-case” scenario is Pepeng making landfall in Northern or Central Luzon early next week.
Nilo said they are monitoring a second weather disturbance following Pepeng and described it as a “developing” low-pressure area.
The number of fatalities from tropical storm “Ondoy” rose to 246 as of yesterday morning, the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) reported.
Ondoy, the 15th tropical cyclone to enter the country this year and the fourth this month, battered the Philippines last Saturday, leaving many areas flooded.
Pagasa also yesterday said it would delete Ondoy from its list of tropical cyclone codenames due to the storm’s extensive damage to the country.
“Most likely, it will be deleted considering the number of deaths and the amount of damage it caused,” Pagasa deputy administrator Nathaniel Cruz told The STAR in a phone interview.
Local typhoon names are decommissioned if cost of damage amounts to P1 billion or above and casualties reach 300 or higher.
Pagasa had previously deleted the codename Frank after typhoon “Frank” killed almost 1,000 people including the passengers of the ill-fated M/V Princess of the Stars that sank off Sibuyan Island in Romblon on June 21, 2008.
Other destructive typhoons that were removed from the list were tropical cyclones “Milenyo” and “Reming,” which hit the Philippines in 2006.
Pagasa had already registered the names of storms until 2016.
The list was prepared in 2000, or the year after the “Name a Bagyo Contest” was launched by the weather bureau under the Department of Science and Technology (DOST).
Pagasa picked 140 codenames out of about 18,000 entries submitted.
Most of the typhoons that preceded Ondoy had not been as damaging, like Auring, Bising, Crising, Dante, Emong, Feria, Gorio, Huaning, Isang, Jolina, Kiko, Labuyo, Maring and Nando.
Succeeding typhoons that would visit the country this year have been named Pepeng, Quedan, Ramil, Santi, Tino, Urduja, Vinta, Wilma, Yolanda and Zoraida.
An auxiliary list of typhoons has also been prepared if the number of cyclones that would hit the country exceeds the Philippine alphabet: Alamid, Bruno, Conching, Dolor, Ernie, Florante, Gerardo, Hernan, Isko and Jerome.