SUPER TYPHOON KOPPU MAKES LANDFALL IN PHILIPPINES

• published: 17 Oct 2015
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Source: CNN Super Typhoon Koppu, known as Lando in the Philippines, made landfall near Casiguran in Luzon's Aurora province at 1 a.m. local time Sunday morning, after a long-feared rapid intensification. Reports of power outages were already coming in from the town of Baler, southwest of the eye late Saturday night. The U.S. military's Joint Typhoon Warning Center upgraded Koppu to a super typhoon, a term used for typhoons with maximum winds of at least 150 mph, equivalent of a Category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale in its 11 a.m. EDT advisory Saturday. Koppu/Lando is the strongest landfall in Luzon in five years. The most ominous threat for the Philippines, however, should be its prolific rainfall as it grinds across the mountains and valleys of Luzon, the main island of the northern Philippines and home to almost half of the country's 98 million people. Koppu's outer rainbands lashed parts of the Philippines Friday and Saturday while winds in its inner core continued to power up. The powerful tropical cyclone is expected to make landfall within the next 12 hours before tracing a painfully slow and dangerously rainy path across the northern part of that country this weekend and early next week. Catastrophic Flood Threat from Days-Long Deluge Koppu/Lando is a particularly worrisome flood risk because it is expected to slow its forward motion during and after landfall this weekend over Luzon. Rainfall potential in a tropical cyclone is largely a function of the cyclone's forward speed, not its wind intensity. Computer model guidance and official forecasts from the U.S. Joint Typhoon Warning Center and the Japan Meteorological Agency suggest the center of Koppu/Lando may hover over or near Luzon through Tuesday, a period of over 48 hours. The first rainbands began wrapping into eastern parts of Luzon Friday. As of 2 p.m. Saturday local time, the city of Virac, on an island just off the southeast end of mainland Luzon, had already picked up 181.4 millimeters (7.14 inches) of rainfall since the start of Friday. With outer rainbands already wrapping into parts of Luzon, and some lingering bands potentially persisting on the south side of the circulation as late as Wednesday, Luzon could be looking at up to 6 days of heavy rainfall from Koppu/Lando before what's left of it finally drifts farther north. With rain rates in tropical cyclones typically in excess of 2 inches per hour and additional lift for the moist air provided by Luzon's mountainous terrain, extreme storm totals of 20 to 40 inches (500 to 1,000 millimeters) are likely across much of northern Luzon.