The first tropical storm of the year 2021 in the West Pacific has formed. The first named tropical storm ‘Dujuan’ is centred at 6.4°N and 131.3°E, about 160km northwest of Sonsorol, Philippines and is to strikenorthern parts of island Mindanao tonight.
It is a slow-moving storm crawling at 4km/h and packed with gale speed winds of 100kmh gusting to 130kmh. The storm is expected to make landfall on Sunday, 21st Feb early hours with high-velocity winds in excess of 100kmh, flooding rains and a wave height of more than 20 feet. The tropical storm is expected to make landfall very close to Davau, a highly urbanized city on the island of Mindanao.
The maiden storm of the season in the West Pacific will sustain its strength for nearly 24hr due to the proximity of ocean and water bodies along its track. The cyclone will impact another island Tacloban in this 24h hours with the same ferocity before entering once again in the open sea. Capital city Manila will stay at a safe distance to escape the direct fury of the storm which otherwise will dump 200-250mm of rainfall as many locations in the southern half of the country.
The stormy season for the West Pacific starts from 01st May and lasts till 30th November. Though there are no official bounds as such for storm formation but frequent defiance like this year is seen on many earlier occasions also. Last year, 2020 was a slightly below-average season in the annual cycle of tropical storm formation. Total of 23 tropical storms and 10 typhoons formed in the Western Pacific. The season had started late and the 1st storm ‘Vangfong’ formed on May 08, 2020, which had rapidly intensified into a Cat-3 typhoon. This was the 5th latest start in the basin on record, a little behind 1973 and 1st to start late since 2016. The last-named storm of the season ‘Krovanh’ had dissipated on Dec 24, 2020.
The most powerful storms, called ‘Typhoon’ occur in the Western Pacific. The Indian Ocean is 2nd in the total number of storms and the Atlantic Ocean ranks 3rd. The ocean surface has to warm up beyond a threshold of 26°C to churn a storm in the tropics. Vast water bodies like oceans and seas remain slow in gaining and releasing their heat potential. The ocean surface reaches its maximum temperature several weeks after the solar radiation maxima between late summer to early fall.
