Typhoon Bopha (Pablo) Catagory 5 Super Typhoon Heading for the Philippines

Extremely dangerous Typhoon Bopha is bearing down on the Philippine island of Mindanao as a Category 5 storm with 160 mph winds.

Bopha completed an eyewall replacement cycle on Sunday and has been steadily intensifying today, and will make landfall on Mindanao in the early morning on Tuesday local time.

Mindanao rarely gets hit by typhoons, since the island is too close to the Equator, and the infrastructure of Mindanao is not prepared to handle heavy typhoon rains as well as the more typhoon-prone northern islands.

Bopha is potentially a catastrophic storm for Mindanao.


[link to www.wunderground.com]

WHAT?

If you can try and call them. I Lived in Florida to for awhile, and the building code are quite robust. Can't say the same for the PI. They need to be a good strong building, like newer hotel or something, then they should be ok.

I hope for the best for them.

Boro

thanks!

been trying to message them. no luck yet. and been praying for them.

hope everyone in the pi stays safe.

From ISS yesterday

[link to d3j5vwomefv46c.cloudfront.net]

mean lookin' sucka!

Pinning this again for the news. Boroboro,keep us informed and stay safe.

i land in manila on thursday night at 22.30 does anyone know if there is a chance of getting delayed in dubi thanks

my god cat 5
[link to www.typhoon2000.ph]

Quoting barbamz:


Seems Bopha is heading right to the west for a while now. South of the forecast track. If this continues it might be worse for the highly populated area of Davao City as well.
I was just seeing that as well. Also, two other big problems with a westward instead of WNW track. That takes the storm over a much more densely populated section of the island, and also would have it spend much more time over land. [link to www.wunderground.com]

Looks like Bopha's eye is going into the towns of Manay and Caraga. They have a combined pop. of 70,000.

NRL has it at 140kts with a 918mb pressure. [link to www.nrlmry.navy.mil]

Is this normal for this time of year?

Thanks AC saw this a preview of things to come

gif [link to tropic.ssec.wisc.edu]

Abby Normal, here in Texas 80 and no rain in Dec-the new norm

Town called Baganga (pop. 43,000), north of Manay and Caraga is the one in the firing line.

On present course, looks like Cateel will get the northern Eye Wall, which is probably the worst winds and also this is actually one of the most vulnerable locations on this coastline, due to low elevations and being in the back of a bay.

It's turned a lot harder west than it was originally forecast to do, and that's considering that at one point it was actually north of the forecast center line when I first woke up this morning. Now it's way south and west of where it looked like it was headed several hours ago.

[link to www.pagasa.dost.gov.ph]


Pablo

031500z position near 7.6n 128.2e.
Super Typhoon (STY) 26w (Bopha) located approximately 630 nm
southeast of Manila, Philippines has tracked west-northwestward at
16 knots over the past six hours. Maximum significant wave height at
031200z is 52 feet. Next warnings at 032100z, 040300z, 040900z and
041500z.//

Mindanao bracing for 260 to 315 kph winds from Super Typhoon 'Pablo'
Article | December 4, 2012 - 2:41am

Source: Voxbikol.com

Naga City (1:00 AM Dec 4, 2012) - Super typhoon 'Pablo' (International Name: Bopha) has intensified further few hours before its expected landing somewhere in Surigao del Sur or Davao Oriental.

At midnight today (one hour ago), its center was spotted 173 km East Southeast of Bislig City in Surigao del Sur.

Typhoon expert David Michael V. Padua of Weather.com.ph projects that Pablo shall be an 'extremely catastrophic Category 5 Supertyphoon' when it hits land somewhere along Cateel Bay, Davao Oriental at 4-6 AM today as it packs a sustained center wind of 260 km/hour and gusts up to 315 kph .

Pablo is almost 3 times the strength of Sendong that crossed North-Central Mindanao on December 16, 2011 wiping out entire villages and leaving 1200 dead.

This Super Tyhoon can become the most devastating typhoon ever to hit Mindanao since Super Typhoon Kate (Titang) in October 1970.

The government and private entities have braced for Pablo over the past several days with the best preparation and disaster preparedness plans it can muster. Rainfall caused by Pablo is classified as Extreme at 400 mm over 24 hours.

On the forecast track, the core of Bopha is expected to make landfall along the Davao Oriental-Surigao Del Sur Border this morning (approx. 4-6 am Manila Time)...and cross Surigao Del Sur, Agusan Del Sur and Misamis Oriental Tuesday morning until the early afternoon, passing over or very close to Cagayan De Oro City between 1-2 pm. By Tuesday evening, Bopha should emerge over the Bohol Sea near the coast of Misamis Occidental, and then traverse Southern Coast of Negros passing just south of Dumaguete City between 6 to 8 pm. This typhoon will then traverse Sulu Sea Wednesday morning...and pass along the northern tip of Palawan, very close to El Nido, Palawan by Wednesday evening.

Scott Bachmeier @CIMSS_Satellite 35m

Category 5 Super Typhoon Bopha, approaching the Philippines: 375-meter resolution Suomi NPP VIIRS IR image: [link to cimss.ssec.wisc.edu]

At 0347 UTC on Dec. 3, NASA's TRMM satellite flew above a dangerous typhoon Bopha. Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) to hit the island of Mindinao in the Philippines with winds of 135 kts (155 mph) later today.

This 3-D image from TRMM's Precipitation Radar showed some strong convective thunderstorms on the eastern side of Bopha's eye were reaching heights of over 16 km (~9.94 miles).

A TRMM analysis showed that Bopha had a well-defined eye with very heavy rain falling at a rate of over 80mm/hr (~3.1 inches) falling in the eye and in intense rain bands spiraling around the eye.

Credit: NASA/SSAI, Hal Pierce [link to www.nasa.gov]

PAGASA tweet at 50 mins ago..

At 3:00AM 4/DEC/2012, the eye of Typhoon #Pablo was located @ 50km Eastern coast of Davao Oriental

Hopefully the mountains will start to disrupt Bopha. The island has many peaks over 6000 ft and some in excess of 9000 ft. Probably not good for the rainfall potential though

Conventional wisdom once said that Mindanao was a typhoon free zone,particularly in December which is part of ting-init, or the hot dry season. Suddenly,Mindanao is now hit two years in a row by really horrible December typhoons.

Shape of things to come

Eye is definitely clouding up as it approaches the coast. It doesn't matter at this point though, landfall is imminent, maybe it'll weaken from 140kts to 125kts but that really doesn't make a difference.

New NOAA ADT numbers.

2012DEC03 193000 7.5 884.0/ 5.0 /155.0 7.2 7.0 7.0 NO LIMIT ON FLG -15.02 -78.95 EYE 13 IR 7.63 -126.80 COMBO


Not sure how they know the pressure and wind is still steady, in spite of the T numbers coming down. Maybe the system just doesn't work for storms interacting with high terrain.

Rapid weakening flag is ...flagged actually (edited), but eye temperature is dropping even more, so the land interaction must be taking a toll now.

13 mile radius of maximum winds. Wow.

An Enormous Super Typhoon Is Barreling Towards The Philippines by @j_berlinger [link to read.bi]