29 October 2009

Typhoon Mirinae (Santi)

Posted by Dave Petley

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Once again Luzon in the Philippines is staring down the barrel of a powerful tropical cyclone, Typhoon Mirinae (known locally as Typhoon Santi). The storm is currently forecast to track across the southern part of Luzon on Friday evening:
The 24 hour eTRaP precipitation forecast for the storm suggests that it is, as expected, inducing substantial amounts of precipitation along track:

At the moment the storm is quite fast moving (15 knots) which from a precipitation perspective is probably good news. From a landslide perspective the worry however is that the storm appears likely to induce heavy rainfall in the areas most seriously affected by Typhoons Parma and Ketsana:

Indeed, the similarity between the track of Typhoon Ketsana and the forecast for Typhoon Mirinae is of some concern. Typhoon Ketsana killed at least 460 people.