Typhoons in the Philippines
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Signal #1 winds of 30–60 km/h (20-37 mph) are expected to occur within 36 hours |
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Signal #2 winds of 61–120 km/h (38–73 mph) are expected to occur within 24 hours |
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Signal #3 winds of 121–170 km/h, (74–105 mph) are expected to occur within 18 hours. |
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Signal #4 winds of 171–220 km/h, (106–137 mph) are expected to occur within 12 hours. |
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Signal #5 winds of at least 220 km/h, (137 mph) are expected to occur within 12 hours. |
Approximately twenty tropical cyclones enter the Philippine Area of Responsibility yearly of which ten will be typhoons with five being destructive. The Philippines is "the most exposed country in the world to tropical storms" according to a Time Magazine article in 2013. In the Philippine languages, typhoons are called bagyo.
Typhoons can hit the Philippines any time of year, with the months of June to September being the most active, with August being the most active individual month and May the least active. Typhoons move east to west across the country, heading north was they go. Storms most frequently make landfall on the islands of Eastern Visayas and northern Luzon whereas the southern island and region of Mindanao is largely free of typhoons.
The deadliest overall tropical cyclone to impact the Philippines is believed to have been the Haiphong typhoon which is estimated to have killed up to 20,000 people as it passed over the country in September 1881. In modern meteorological records, the deadliest storm was Typhoon Yolanda (international name Haiyan), which became the strongest landfalling tropical cyclone ever recorded as it crossed the Visayas in central Philippines on November 7–8, 2013. The wettest known tropical cyclone to impact the archipelago was the July 14–18, 1911 cyclone which dropped over 2,210 millimetres (87 in) of rainfall within a 3-day, 15-hour period in Baguio City. Tropical cyclones usually account for at least 30 percent of the annual rainfall in the northern Philippines while being responsible for less than 10 percent of the annual rainfall in the southern islands. PAGASA Senior Weather Specialist Anthony Lucero told the newsite Rappler that the number of destructive typhoons have increased recently but it is too early to call it a trend.
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Wikipedia