Northern, Central Luzon to suffer Lando’s fury for 3 days

NORTHERN and Central Luzon will continue to suffer from the onslaught of Typhoon Lando (international name Koppu) for three more days or until October 21, Wednesday, the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) warned.

“It’s moving slowly. That’s bad news because it’s going to stay longer. This means for the next three days it will be over northern and Central Luzon,” Pagasa meteorologist Aldczar Aurelio said in a news briefing Sunday night.

Pagasa did not lift public storm warning signals over Metro Manila and surrounding provinces, saying the typhoon did not move farther away as fast as expected.

“We expected that the weather will improve tonight but Lando slowed down so we are still in signal [under signal] number two,” Aurelio said.

The state weather bureau lowered the warning signal from Number 4 to Number 2 over Aurora where Lando made landfall early Sunday.

But it maintained warning signal Number 3 over Nueva Ecija, Quirino, Nueva Vizcaya, Benguet, Ifugao, Mountain Province, Kalinga, Ilocos Sur, La Union, Pangasinan and Zambales.

It also maintained warning signal Number 2 over Metro Manila, Cagayan (including the Calayan and Babuyan islands), Isabela, Abra, Apayao, Ilocos Norte, Bataan, Tarlac, Pampanga, Bulacan, Rizal and northern Quezon (including Polillo islands).

Cavite, Laguna, Batangas and the rest of Quezon also remained under warning signal Number 1.

The 600 kilometer-diameter typhoon will continue to bring moderate to heavy to occasionally intense rains over northern and Central Luzon in the next three days, Pagasa warned.

Sea travel around Luzon and Visayas was also discouraged.

Aurelio said the combined effect of Typhoon Champi in the Pacific (which will not enter the Philippine area of responsibility), the tail end of a cold front in northern Luzon and a high pressure area in the West Philippine Sea kept Typhoon Lando longer over the Luzon landmass.

Lando slightly weakened since making landfall over Central Luzon but remained powerful enough with maximum winds of 150 kph (from 175 kph) near the center and gusts up to 185 kph (from 210 kph).

It was almost stationary over Aurora for six hours early Sunday, moving at 3 kph.

From 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. the typhoon slowly bulldozed through Central then northern Luzon provinces moving at 5 kph and also started to turn from a westwards to a west-northwards track.

The center of the typhoon was over Nueva Vizcaya as of Sunday night. It was expected to move over Ilocos Sur, Mountain Province, Abra, Ifugao, Apayao and Cagayan in the next three days.

Typhoon Lando will return to sea north of Cagayan province around Wednesday afternoon headed towards Taiwan.

But the typhoon will continue to affect northern Luzon until it leaves the country’s area of responsibility around Saturday, according to Pagasa.

Pagasa said the weather may begin to improve in northern Luzon around Thursday or Friday, in Central Luzon around Wednesday or Thursday.

Aurelio said if Lando maintains its track, they may lift the warning signal over Metro Manila by Monday afternoon.