Siony steers north, may still make landfall over Batanes
MANILA, Philippines — Tropical Storm Siony has moved further north, placing Babuyan Islands and Batanes on its track, latest predictions from the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) on Tuesday showed.
According to Pagasa’s bulletin as of 5:00 p.m., Siony, currently located 610 kilometers east of Basco, Batanes, may hover between the extreme Northern Luzon waters instead of previous forecasts that it may hit Luzon’s landmass between the Cordillera area and Central Luzon.
However, Siony’s cone of probability or the range areas where it may move to eventually is still wide, which means it can either move north to the south of Taiwan, or move down over Ilocos Norte and Cagayan.
The landfall may happen between Thursday afternoon and Friday morning. As of now, Siony packs maximum sustained winds of 65 kilometers per hour (kph) and gusts of 80 kph.
While Siony and Tropical Storm Rolly have no direct effect on the country’s weather systems, the trough of both weather disturbances are expected to affect the eastern and western side of Luzon, as well as Western Visayas.
Rolly is seen to exit the Philippine area of responsibility by Tuesday night, later than it was initially expected to leave the country’s premises.
Overall, most parts of Luzon would see a gradual improvement of weather, even becoming hot and humid in some areas like Metro Manila which would see temperatures of 24 to 33 degrees Celsius, Legazpi and Puerto Princesa with 25 to 32 degrees. Laoag and Cagayan would see colder weather with highs of just 31 degrees.
It would even be warmer down in Visayas and Mindanao, with Tacloban expecting temperatures between 25 to 33 degrees Celsius, and 25 to 32 degrees for Cebu and Davao.
Gale warnings over the whole northern seaboards of Luzon as well as the waters of Ilocos Region, Cagayan, and Isabela are still in place, as sea condition may be rough to very rough. This means small boats are not allowed to set sail in these areas.
