Category 4 Nesat set to slam the Philippines

Light rain spits down from the swiftly moving clouds as two tropical storms spin to the west.

The Philippines has a unique underwater landscape. To the west is shallow with many islands. To the east, it is deeper before the Philippine shelf disappears into the Mariana trench, the deepest part of the worlds ocean. This means that the sea to the east is colder due to the depth while the sea to the west is warmer as it is shallow. However, the sea directly to the east is still very warm. The seas surrounding the Philippines have the hottest surface temperature in the world, giving it the perfect climate for tropical storms to develop.

Most tropical storms will develop in the east and then head west, curving to the north and giving the Philippines a glancing blow. From time to time, the tropical storm will not curve north and it will hit the Philippines head on.

Tonight, the trailing edge of Typhoon Nesat has hit land and the temperature has dropped to around 27c with light rain and increasingly stronger winds. The eye of the typhoon is expected to make landfall sometime on Tuesday morning as a category 4 tropical storm with a wind speed of 131mph – 154mph! While it doesn’t look like it will be a direct hit for Manila, the Typhoon is massive and a lot of it will be over Manila as you can see in the image to the left.

I am locking my windows and getting the sweeping brushes and mops ready to get rid of the water when we get heavy rain so that it can not leak far into the house. I hope to get some video clips of the lightening if the storm is electrically active. If it is a strong storm, I may be without electricity or internet for a few days again as this happened during the last strong storm that hit while I was here.

Update: Sep 27th 2011 6:06am

The storm has intensified and is due to make landfall within the next few hours. We are experiencing medium rain and strong winds with increasing intensity.

Manila airports are still open, but the planed are departing at a very low altitude to avoid the storm, flying away from the storm before increasing to a cruising altitude. Yes, I am having fun running outside to see the planes go past as they are so low you can make out the bulbs that make up their lights as well as seeing each of the passenger windows.

My lights and power keep flashing on and off. I expect the electricity to go off at some point.

According to the latest satellite images (yes I have access to satellite image feeds) it looks like the typhoon may have already made landfall. Previously, it was expected to make landfall at around 9am. Once it makes landfall, the intensity of the storm will decrease, but this will cause a lot of the clouds within the storm system to come apart and create heavy rain.

“Recent microwave satellite images show rains up to 0.8″ per hour falling along the southeast quadrant of Nesat’s center, and heavy rains of 5 – 10 inches will cause significant flooding in the Philippines.” – WeatherUnderground

This quantity of rain will likely cause landslides and some building collapses as some buildings are not waterproof such as my house!

The storm has not gained strength to become a Category 4 and is only a Category 1, likely to be a Category 2 by the time it makes landfall, reducing in strength as it passes over the Philippines. However, according to the latest information, it seems to have not yet made landfall and is a Category 3 storm.

Update: Sep 27th 2011 7:33am

The electricity just went off and came back on again. Then, as I was writing this, it went off again so I am going to have to make this quick. I have checked satellite images and can confirm that Nesat, the tropical storm, has now made landfall. Winds have intensified and some tin roofs have blown off in our neighbourhood. I expect that the electricity will go off entirely a little later when the storm is passing us and giving the maximum wind we will experience.

From the look of these images, it seems that Nesat may be 1/4 of the way across the Philippines. Hopefully it will not take long to pass us, but it is expected to leave the west side of the Philippines tomorrow morning.

I will continue to keep you updates as and when I can.

Update: Sep 27th 2011 9:49am

After countless blackouts, I am back online. Credit to Meralco though as the blackouts were just for fractions of a second each. The rain is much heavier now and the wind is intensifying further. The raindrops are fairly small so far, so it is not torrential so far.

According to the latest satalite imagery, tropical storm Nesat is now at the halfway point and seems to be in the middle of Luzon. When Nesat made landfall, the eye of the storm partially collapsed as was expected and the storm began to lose its strength. Still, I would not want to be at the location where it made landfall!

The two images below show Nesat making landfall. The image below that is an animation of images showing Nesat making landfall.

I will keep an eye on the storm and report any major changes. If there are none, I will report the storm leaving the Philippines and entering the China Sea.

Update: Sep 27th 2011 7:36pm

After being up all night, I went to bed around 11:30am and woke up again at 5:30pm.

The storm has entered the China Sea on the west side of the Philippines, but the storm system is still over most of the Philippines, causing rain and flooding in many areas. Around 5,000 people from Manila have been evacuated to shelters as they were in areas most likely to experience severe flooding.

In the last animated image I posted, you can see a red splodge on the right of the image moving further to the left. This is a second depression that has developed and may turn into another tropical storm. The details of this storm are shown in the image below.

Hopefully, the tropical depression they call “Twentytwo” will not hit the Philippines directly, but there is always the chance that it could turn a little south. However, having said that, most of the storms head in a west north west direction, so we shouldn’t get much more than strong wind and rain.

Image Credits

The images I have used came from a number of sources. All images are copyright to their respective owner. Images used from or generated with the help of: NASA, LANCE, RAMMB, NOAA, AERONET Manila Observatory, AERONET ND Marbel University, RAMSDIS, CIRA and WeatherUnderground. Special thanks to NASA and their associated partners for their excellent satellite image ftp servers, allowing up to the minute image retrieval. This allowed me to know where the storm was before the TV or internet news!