A powerful typhoon Vamco in the Philippine Sea, locally named as storm Ulysses is waiting in the wings to strike the coast in the next 24 hours. The storm is centred around 14.8°N and 124.5°E about 400km away from the coast. Presently this Cat-1 storm is packed with winds of 100kmh and in gust picking up to 125kmh. It is likely to become Cat-2 typhoon before making landfall east of Quezon and weaken to Cat-1 before exiting the mainland on 12th November afternoon.
The storm will have damaging winds and torrential rains striking group of Luzon Island with high-velocity winds of the order of 175kmh. The striking area will be prone to floods, storm surge, landslides because of incessant heavy rains. Evacuation has already been ordered and thousands of people will be shifted to safe places.
This is the 21st storm of this year to strike the Philippines and the active season will last up to mid- December. Earlier this month, super typhoon Goni, world’s strongest storm this year struck this area causing 25 deaths, thousands homeless and damaged infrastructure. The storm will be moving westward and heading for Vietnam after travel over the South China Sea.
These tropical storms have a history of striking East Asian countries like Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, and Myanmar. Cyclone Vamco also is going to track this route and reach Myanmar early next week as a weakened system. Few of them do emerge in the Bay of Bengal and rejuvenate to become cyclone and threaten the Indian coastline. The storm will be kept under observation for any such eventuality.