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High
Alert: Flooding may get worse as Russia's Far East destroyed in
deluge
Trami
Collides with Monsoonal Flow to Produce Record Rainfall over
Philippines
Record
rainfall: more than 60% of Philippine capital under water
Flooding
caused by some of the Philippines' heaviest rains that submerged more
than half the capital began receding Tuesday, but authorities
evacuated thousands of residents along Manila's overflowing rivers
and braced for more chaos in outlying provinces.
20
August, 0213
At
least eight people have died, including four who drowned north of
Manila. The dead included a 5-year-old boy whose house was hit by a
concrete wall that collapsed, and a 3-year-old boy who fell into a
swollen river in Mariveles town in Bataan province. Four people are
missing.
Throughout
the sprawling, low-lying capital region of 12 million people,
offices, banks and schools were closed and most roads were
impassable. People stumbled through waist- or neck-deep waters,
holding on to ropes strung from flooded houses.
More
than 200 evacuation centers were opened in Manila and surrounding
provinces, filled with tens of thousands of people, Social Welfare
Secretary Corazon Soliman said. Overall, more than 600,000 people
have been affected by the floods.
"I
had to wade through a waist-deep flood," said Esteban Gabin, a
45-year-old driver, who was plotting the best route to check on his
family in Pampanga province, northwest of Manila. "But I may
have to swim to reach my home because we live near the Pampanga
River, and the flood there could reach up to neck deep."
The
flooding that covered half of the capital receded to 20 percent,
concentrated on Marikina and Paranaque cities, said Eduardo del
Rosario, head of the national disaster council.
In
Marikina, where the river breached its banks, authorities started
evacuating some 12,000 people to schools and gymnasiums that were
turned into emergency shelters.
As
the weather gradually improved in Manila, the concern shifted to
provinces outside the capital that were expected to be drenched as
the monsoon travels north.
In
Pampanga's rice-producing town of Minalin, more than 200 villagers
fled after water from a swollen river spilled over a dike and began
flooding communities amid pounding rain. Villagers scrambled to lay
sandbags on the dike and in front of their houses, said Office of
Civil Defense officer Nigel Lontoc.
"The
villagers are afraid that the dike may collapse any time,"
Lontoc said by phone.
About
200 members of the Aeta tribe living near the foot of Mount Pinatubo
left their homes for fear of being swept away by a raging river near
Botolan township in Zambales province, said Elsa Novo, a leader of an
Aeta federation in the province. She said other family members stayed
behind to watch their property.
Evacuations
were also under way around the La Mesa dam, north of Manila, which
began overflowing. The waters from the dam flow into the Tullahan
River, which passes through some of the densely populated areas of
the capital.
The
flooding followed two nights of heavy monsoon rains enhanced by
Tropical Storm Trami. The storm hovered over the North Philippine Sea
and drenched the main northern island of Luzon with up to 30
millimeters (just over an inch) of rain per hour. It was forecast to
move away from the Philippines toward Taiwan on Wednesday.
In
many coastal towns along swollen Lake Laguna, near Manila, and in
food-growing riverside provinces, residents were trapped on rooftops,
waded through the streets or drifted on makeshift rafts. Many chose
to stay close to their homes for fear they would be looted if they
left.
Flooding
has become more frequent in Manila because of deforestation of
mountains, clogged waterways and canals where large squatter
communities live, and poor urban planning.
"We're
surprised by the rainfall. Some areas experienced record levels,"
said Science Secretary Mario Montejo.
According
to an assessment from the Department of Science and Technology,
rainfall reached 600 mm (23 ½ inches) in and around Manila Bay on
Sunday alone — more than a month's worth of rain in a day. That's
compared to the disastrous 2009 Typhoon Ketsana, the strongest to hit
Manila in modern history, when 455 mm of rain fell in 24 hours.
Many
domestic and international flights at Ninoy Aquino International
Airport were canceled. Key roads leading to the airport were flooded
and passengers and crew were delayed.
The
Philippine archipelago is among the most battered by storms in the
world. About 20 tropical cyclones hit the country every year.
Tropical
Storm and Monsoonal Flow Collide Over Super-Heated Pacific to Dump
Two Feet of Rain on Manila
20
August, 2013
Yesterday,
tropical storm Trami churned through an abnormally hot Pacific Ocean
toward an inevitable date with downpour over Taiwan and Southeastern
China. There, a procession of tropical storms and monsoonal moisture
had set off record floods which, by Tuesday, had resulted in the
deaths of over 200 people. The now saturated region expects the
arrival of Trami today, but not after the tropical monster, loaded
with megatons of moisture, clashed with an already amped monsoonal
flow to drench the Philippines as it emerged from a broiling Pacific
Ocean.
Throughout
the past month, an ocean heat dome had caused surface water
temperatures to soar above 86 degrees Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius)
over a vast swath of the Pacific Ocean just to the east of China and
to the south of Japan and Korea. This powerful pool of latent Pacific
heat was a major factor in the delivery of record heatwaves to China,
Korea and Japan which resulted in thousands of hospitalizations and
at least 100 lives lost. But yesterday, the heat and moisture rising
off the Pacific would play its highly energetic part in an entirely
different anomalous weather event — the inundation of the
Philippine capital city of Manila.
As
Trami made her way over these hot and moisture rich waters, she grew
in size until her cloud area covered a width of more than one
thousand miles. Ocean temperatures soaring between 2 and 4 degrees
(Fahrenheit) above average helped to pump its immense bulk full of
moisture even as it became wrapped in a dense flow of monsoonal
moisture proceeding from west to east off the continent.
By
Monday, Trami was moving in from the east, lashing the Philippines
with her dense, thunderstorm laden, spiral bands even as monsoonal
storms came into collision with these bands from the west. The
combination of a moisture rich tropical storm colliding with an
equally rain dense monsoonal flow over a Philippines surrounded by
anomalously hot water set off an extraordinarily intense rain event
in which the capital of Manila was inundated by a powerful deluge.
Rainfall
rates for this sprawling city hit a stunning 2 inches per hour and
maintained that record shattering pace for almost twelve hours
running. In total, more than 23.5 inches of rainfall was recorded at
rain gauges across the capital. Many residents, whose homes were
flooded in a rising rush of water, were forced to evacuate and
initial reports indicate that at least 100,000 of Manila’s 12
million residents have now relocated to emergency shelters. So far,
at least 8 deaths and millions of dollars in damages have been
attributed to the storm. But with local levees and damns under threat
of over-topping and collapse, the initial reports and estimates may
just be the beginning.
Satellite
and water vapor imagery taken on Tuesday showed rains continuing over
the Philippines, albeit at a less intense rate, as Trami turned her
great bulk of moisture northwestward toward the already soaked
regions of Taiwan and southeastern China. Trami is expected to
intensify into a category 1 Typhoon this afternoon and is likely to
deliver severe rains and flooding to already soaked regions.
Trami
Rakes Taiwan and Philippines
You
can see Trami raking both Taiwan and the Philippines with massive and
rain-dense cloud bands in the most recent NOAA water vapor imagery.
In this image, the storm appears to intensify as it bears down on the
already storm-soaked shores of China and Taiwan.
Conditions
in Context
The
Philippines is hit by a total of 20 tropical cyclones each year. So
heavy rainfall and floods are a regular aspect of life there.
However, the nearly 24 inches of rainfall during a 12 hour period
experienced yesterday is unprecedented, breaking even a number of
Manila’s very high record rainfall totals. The conditions that led
to these records, just one year after another severe rainfall event,
include anomalous heating of the Pacific Ocean under a powerful Ocean
Heat Dome during late July and early August, a rather strong and
thick monsoonal flow that has tended to meander a bit further north
than is usual, and a very large tropical cyclone fed by both the
anomalous heat and added moisture.
Climate
research has shown that we can expect more intense rainfall events
worldwide as the hydrological cycle increases by 6% with a .8 degree
Celsius temperature rise. Similar research has found evidence of more
frequent tropical cyclones as oceans warm and seasons in which
hurricanes may develop continue to lengthen. This region of the
Pacific Ocean, in particular, has shown an increasing number of
cyclones as Earth has continued its human-driven warming trend, with
temperatures increasing by .2 degrees Celsius per decade over the
last 30 years. Since the vast Pacific Ocean forms a kind of moisture
trap in this steamy region, it is likely the area will experience
some of the worst flooding and storm effects coming down the pipe due
to human-caused warming.
Trami’s
expected delivery of powerful storms to China and Taiwan will also,
unfortunately, probably not be the last for this season. Water
temperatures are still stunningly high and moisture flows from both
the Indian Ocean and the Pacific are likely to churn out many more
storms before the tropical cyclone season ends months from now.
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