Flooding Problems Return to Philippines

It has been just over two months since typhoon Haiyan ravaged the Philippines and yet another tropical system has swept across the Philippines this past week to cause problems. Agaton, which was only rated a tropical depression bearing winds of 55km/h, was very slow-moving at only 5km/h towards the west. This was mainly due to high pressure to its west-northwest blocking its movement. In turn, severe flooding and landslides over the mountainous terrain was possible as the storm churned over land and was able to drop large amounts of rain at the same time.

The bulk of the rain passed south of the areas ravaged by Haiyan, affecting the provinces of Suriago, Agusan, Leyte and various others. Rainfall rates between 10-50mm/h were observed on radar but in the strongest convective bands reached up to 140mm/h. Total accumulations for the week reached over 1200mm (1.2m) in the hardest hit areas of northern Mindanao where the average January rainfall is 370mm! Unfortunately with this extreme rainfall came flooding and landslides which contributed to 42 deaths and has displaced 129,000 people.

After making landfall Agaton slowly weakened and was downgraded to a low pressure system. This weekend it is no longer a threat to the Philippines.