Storm 'Agaton' brewing near RP

MANILA, Philippines - A tropical depression over the Pacific Ocean is expected to intensify into a storm before entering the Philippine area of responsibility (PAR) this morning, but state weather forecasters said the disturbance is not expected to bring a significant amount of rain over areas affected by the El Niño dry spell.

The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) said the weather disturbance was spotted at 5 p.m. yesterday some 1,420 kilometers east of Visayas with maximum sustained winds of 55 kilometer per hour.

The weather disturbance, which will be given the local name “Agaton” once it enters the PAR, was moving west-northwest at 19 kph.

Senior weather forecaster Robert Sawi said the depression is likely to reach storm intensity before approaching the country’s area of responsibility.

“If it will not change track, it will enter the country on Wednesday morning,” Sawi told a press briefing at the Pagasa head office in Quezon City yesterday.

However, he said good weather condition is still expected to prevail over the country in the next few days except for some isolated rainshowers.

“The depression is still too far to affect the country,” Sawi said.

He said most parts of the country will have partly cloudy to cloudy skies with isolated rainshowers.

“Warm and humid condition will be experienced in most parts of the country in the next few days,” he said.

Pagasa administrator Prisco Nilo said the most likely scenario is that the depression will recurve toward Japan and will not hit the country.

Sawi said the depression is expected to bring isolated rains over the eastern section of Visayas in the next few days.

He said a weather system called “trough” or a slow moving low-pressure system will prevent the storm from moving toward the country.

Susan Espinueva, chief of Pagasa’s hydrometeorological division, said the country needs some 600 to 700 millimeters of rain to fill the drying reservoirs in Luzon.

“A normal storm usually brings 300 to 400 millimeters of rain, so one storm is not enough (to fill the dams),” Espinueva said.

She said water levels in major dams in Luzon remained “below the normal high or spilling elevation levels” due to El Niño.

Pagasa senior weather specialist Daisy Ortega said El Niño has already affected 302,556 hectares of crops in Regions 1, 2, 4-A, 5, 6, 10 and the Cordillera Administrative Region.

Pagasa experts said the weather phenomenon is likely to last until June.