MANILA, Philippines — Tropical Depression Pilandok will enhance the southwest monsoon that has dumped torrential rain in Luzon, the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical, and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) said on Sunday.
“Pilandok” was seen 1,225 kilometers (km) east of extreme northern Luzon at 10 a.m., weather specialist Daniel James Villamil said. It was moving west northwestward at 15 km per hour (km/h) with sustained winds of 45 km/h near the center and gustiness reaching 55 km/h.
"Our concern in the next days is the effect of storm Pilandok wherein it will continue to pull or enhance the southwest monsoon...which will bring rains in Luzon and western sections of Visayas," Villamil said in Filipino and English.
He said that from Monday to Tuesday, the storm's track would shift to northward and would eventually weaken into a low pressure area.
Villamil warned that rainfall could reach 200 millimeters (mm) in Ilocos Sur, La Union, Benguet, Pangasinan, Zambales, Tarlac, Pampanga and Bataan. This meant an orange warning.
Rainfall could reach 100 mm in the rest of the Ilocos region, the rest of the Cordillera, the rest of Central Luzon, Metro Manila, and parts of Calabarzon and Occidental Mindoro, he said.
