Tropical Storm ‘Falcon’ hot on heels of ‘Egay’

Two overlapping storms will bring more rains and likely floods over many parts of Luzon this week, the state weather bureau warned.

Six provinces in northern Luzon will continue to experience rains with gusty winds brought by Tropical Storm “Egay” (international name: Linfa) as it slowly moved northward away from the country.

The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) lowered the public storm warning signal to No. 1 in Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur, Abra, Batanes, northwest Cagayan including the Calayan and Babuyan group of islands, and Apayao. (As of 11 p.m. Monday, the warning signal in Ilocos Sur and Abra was lifted.)

It has lifted the storm warning signal over Kalinga and Isabela provinces.

The western section of Luzon including Metro Manila will continue to experience moderate to heavy monsoon rains which may also trigger flash floods and landslides, according to Pagasa.

Pagasa still advised against sea travel around Luzon.

After battering northern Luzon, Egay slightly weakened to maximum sustained winds of 75 kilometers per hour and gusts up to 90 kph and slowed down as it slowly headed north to Batanes.

Egay was almost stationary for nine hours from Sunday 8 p.m. to Monday 5 a.m. after it exited the Luzon landmass through Ilocos Norte on Sunday afternoon.

Moving slowly at 7 kph northward, Pagasa revised its forecast and said the storm would exit the Philippine area of responsibility (PAR) on Thursday afternoon, or a day later than forecast. (As of 11 p.m. Monday, Pagasa again revised its forecast, saying Egay would be outside of the PAR Wednesday evening.)

Pagasa said Egay could dissipate to a low pressure area by Wednesday.

Nevertheless, the storm will overlap with approaching Tropical Storm “Falcon” (the local name to be given to Storm Chon Ham) which is expected to enter the PAR on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning.

Unlike Egay, Falcon is not expected to hit land.

Pagasa said these storms would continue to enhance the southwest monsoon bringing rains over the western section of Luzon including Metro Manila, Mimaropa and Calabarzon.

After Falcon, the weather bureau is monitoring another storm internationally named “Nangka” (to be named Goring once inside the PAR) moving toward the country, though this is still more than 2,000 km away in the Pacific Ocean.

Pagasa issued a heavy rainfall warning Monday morning, sounding the second-highest orange alert for threatening flooding in Metro Manila, Zambales and Bataan by noon.

It sounded the yellow alert for possible flooding over Cavite, Rizal, Bulacan, Laguna and Pampanga provinces.

Due to the heavy rains, Binga Dam in Benguet province released 63 cubic meters of water per second at 2 p.m., affecting barangays Dalupirin and Tinungdan in Itogon municipality.

But even though the storm made landfall over Isabela and was stationary over the province for six hours on Saturday, Magat Dam’s level went down further by .31 meters to 176.37 meters above sea level (masl). The dam’s minimum operational level to generate power is 160 masl.

The level in Pantabangan Dam in Nueva Ecija province also went down by .10 meters.

But the rains halted the water-level decline in the rest of the major dams in Luzon, which are already below their normal operating level.

The biggest gainers were Ambuklao Dam and Binga Dam in Benguet, which increased by 3 meters and 1.98 meters, respectively.

Angat Dam in Bulacan province, which supplies Metro Manila’s domestic water needs, went up by .19 meter to 169.33 masl, along with Ipo in Bulacan, La Mesa in Quezon City, San Roque in Pangasinan and Caliraya in Laguna.