A LOW pressure area (LPA) was forecast yesterday to enter the Philippine area of responsibility (PAR) and intensify into a tropical depression.
As of 3 p.m. yesterday, the LPA was still outside the PAR, specifically some 1,450 km east of southern Luzon, said Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) weather specialist Veronica Torres.
In a public weather forecast at 4 p.m. yesterday, Torres said the weather disturbance was expected to enter PAR late Sunday or Monday.
It will be named “Kristine.”
The LPA was not directly affecting any part of the country as of yesterday, but its trough or extension was bringing cloudy skies with scattered rains and thunderstorms in the Zamboanga Peninsula, Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, Soccsksargen, and Bicol regions, and the provinces of Northern Samar, Palawan, Aurora and Quezon, PAGASA said.
PAGASA weather specialist Grace Castañeda earlier said the LPA, if it intensifies into a tropical depression, “may get near east of northern and central Luzon.”
“We’re not ruling out a possible landfall scenario in northern and central Luzon area,” she also said.
The Office of Civil Defense (OCD), the implementing arm of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, said weather system “is anticipated to make landfall on the eastern coast of Cagayan by Thursday and may traverse northern Luzon.”
Defense Secretary and NDRRMC chairman Gilberto Teodoro Jr urged the public to take precaution amid the threat posed by the weather disturbance.
The OCD said it has instructed its regional offices to initiate preparedness measures, noting the weather disturbance may bring moderate to heavy rainfall.
