{"id":5589,"date":"2012-12-02T00:07:32","date_gmt":"2012-12-02T00:07:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/?p=5589"},"modified":"2012-12-02T00:07:33","modified_gmt":"2012-12-02T00:07:33","slug":"typhoon-bopha-a-very-real-landslide-threat-for-the-philippines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2012\/12\/02\/typhoon-bopha-a-very-real-landslide-threat-for-the-philippines\/","title":{"rendered":"Typhoon Bopha &#8211; a very real landslide threat for the Philippines"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Over the last few days Typhoon Bopha (which is known as Typhoon Pablo in the Philippines) has intensified very rapidly as it tracks westwards.\u00a0 This is an unusual typhoon, in particular in terms of its starting point, which was at about 4 degrees North.\u00a0 Land-falling typhoons in December are also quite unusual (there have only been three since 1978).\u00a0 Usually typhoons start further from the equator than this, because they need a stronger Coriolis force to allow rotation to develop.\u00a0 The typhoon will pass over Palau in the next 24 hours, and then is forecast to track west-northwest to cross the southern part of the Philippines on Tuesday (map from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wunderground.com\/tropical\/tracking\/wp201226.html\">Weather Underground<\/a>):<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2012\/12\/02\/typhoon-bopha-a-very-real-landslide-threat-for-the-philippines\/12_12-bopha-1\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-5590\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5590\" title=\"12_12 Bopha 1\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2012\/12\/12_12-Bopha-1.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2012\/12\/12_12-Bopha-1.gif 640w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2012\/12\/12_12-Bopha-1-300x225.gif 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>This is will make landfall in the Philippines as a category 3 storm. \u00a0 This is very strong, but not exceptional (the scale goes up to five).\u00a0 However, it is also likely to bring very heavy rainfall, which of course is the potential trigger for landslides, and the Philippines has a long history of devastating landslides from typhoons.\u00a0 The only positive sign is that it does seem to be moving reasonably fast, which typically reduces the rainfall impacts (the biggest problems often arise when the typhoon stalls &#8211; i.e. stops moving &#8211; which concentrates the rainfall in a smaller area).\u00a0 However, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wunderground.com\/tropical\/tracking\/wp201226_ensmodel.html\">the longer term forecast<\/a> does seem to show the storm slowing and then stalling to the west of the Philippines, which must be a cause for concern:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2012\/12\/02\/typhoon-bopha-a-very-real-landslide-threat-for-the-philippines\/12_12-bopha-2\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-5591\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5591\" title=\"12_12 Bopha 2\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2012\/12\/12_12-Bopha-2.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2012\/12\/12_12-Bopha-2.gif 640w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2012\/12\/12_12-Bopha-2-300x225.gif 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Last year<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2011\/12\/24\/the-philippine-tropical-storm-washi-sendong-disaster-may-have-been-due-to-the-collapse-of-landslide-dams\/\"> Tropical Storm Sendong (known locally as Washi) crossed a similar area<\/a>, also in December, <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2011\/12\/19\/impacts-of-tropical-storm-washi-in-the-philippines\/\">bringing devastation as a result of very serious landslides and floods<\/a>.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Tropical_Storm_Washi\">Sendong was not as intense as is Bopha<\/a>, being just a tropical storm as it crossed Mindanao.\u00a0 Whilst there is no way to know what might happen this time, <a href=\"http:\/\/newsinfo.inquirer.net\/316359\/bopha-may-inflict-more-damage-than-sendong\">the dangers are very real<\/a>. There is a very real need to ensure that there is adequate preparation along the potential typhoon track.\u00a0 T<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Typhoon Bopha is likely to track across the Philippines in the next three days.  There is a very real danger of multiple landslides from this storm.<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":5590,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[676,469,252,975],"class_list":["post-5589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-typhoon","tag-bopha","tag-featured","tag-philippines","tag-typhoon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}