US forecaster shows LPA’s likely track: Caraga to Zamboanga

By NITZ ARANCON
Correspondent

A US-based media company that provides commercial weather forecasting services worldwide said a potential cyclone has continued a westward track toward Mindanao from the east of Palau.

Accuweather posted a Dec. 18 graph that showed the tropical threat’s most likely track in Mindanao: Caraga, central and northern Mindanao all the way to the Zamboanga peninsula.

It warned that the potential cyclone could become stronger than “Urduja” and spawn damaging winds to Mindanao with gusts over 80 km per hour.

In a forecast, Accuweather meteorologist Eric Leister stated that the area of showers and thunderstorms could become a named tropical system as early as Wednesday as it tracks near Palau, and that a continued westward track could take the potential cyclone toward Mindanao on Thursday.

“A landfalling tropical cyclone is not out of the question across Mindanao as early as Friday with continued impacts across the southern half of the country into the weekend,” reads part of Leister’s forecast.

Accuweather forecast that widespread rainfall of five to 10 inches is expected throughout Mindanao, and that “the new tropical threat would track more quickly westward, keeping the heaviest rainfall limited to 12-24 hours in any given area.

“This continued westward track will also limit the worst impacts across Mindanao to Friday and Saturday.”

The Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration said the low pressure area was still far but if it intensifies into a tropical depression and enters Philippine territory, it would be called “Vinta.”

It was estimated at 395 km east of Mindanao as of yesterday morning.

June Frivaldo, a weather specialist at the Pagasa station in El Salvador, Misamis Oriental, said an LPA’s track cannot be accurately determined because it has the tendency to move toward any direction.

Frivaldo said the LPA has not picked up strength as of yesterday afternoon.

On Monday morning, it weakened and was downgraded from a tropical depression to a LPA but Pagasa said it could still intensify as it hovers over warm ocean water.