A new Super Typhoon has formed in the Western Pacific is is on a track heading towards the Philippines. Latest indications are its losing some of it intensity.
'Very Ugly': 32 Million in Philippines in Path of Super Typhoon Hagupit
BY M. ALEX JOHNSON
The military was on high alert and thousands of families were evacuated Friday morning as Super Typhoon Hagupit and its 180-mph winds remained on course for landfall in areas of the Philippines devastated by Super Typhoon Haiyan last year.
At noon local time (5 p.m. Thursday ET), Hagupit was about 670 miles east-southeast of Manila, moving west-northwest at 11½ mph pushing maximum waves of 45 feet. The U.N. Global Disaster Alert System said almost 32 million people — a third of the country's population — were likely to be affected in some way by cyclone-force winds when the storm arrives in central parts of the island nation Saturday afternoon or evening.
Hagupit, known locally as Ruby, was expected to weaken slightly but to remain a top-level Category 5 storm with life-threatening winds, storm surges and flash floods.
"This storm is not going to be quite as strong as Haiyan, but the probability is it has the potential to impact some of the same areas that were impacted last year," when last year's strongest storm killed more than 7,000 people in the Philippines in November 2013, said Ari Sarsalari, a meteorologist for The Weather Channel.
"By this weekend, you guys be aware, because this is definitely the type of situation that can get very ugly," Sarsalari said.
One year ago today I was doing disaster relief volunteer work in the central Philippine island of Bohol. I saw
what a Super Typhoon could do first hand. This is frightening news no matter where this new monster makes landfall. The present projected track would take it over the Metro Manila area.
Extreme weather events are becoming the destructive new norm.