Typhoons and monsoon rains

Typhoons hit the Philippines at least 20 times a year.  Before this year, the weather bureau have named them with the first letters following the Tagalog alphabet.  It surprised me for this year, the first letter of typhoon names are now following the English alphabet!  They could be running out of Tagalog human names but it is no excuse.  The codenames could be simple Tagalog words instead.  Anyway the typhoons are given international names so there's no concern for other nationalities to be asking what kind of language the names are given to them.

Another thing is the weather bureau PAG-ASA could not even predict well the path and rains the typhoons would bring.  The truth is I am more concerned about monsoon rains a storm will carry with it.  It causes more floods and destruction with continuous rains for days, unlike the typhoon itself that could only take a day or two.  Typhoons signal are the basis for communities to take caution.  The heavy monsoon rains should also be categorized and also forecasted what areas will experience downpour!

Latest Earthquake events Feb. 16 to 24, 2011

After days of searching for information about the earthquakes that shook Baguio City, I finally found it at the Philvlocs website but I had to go through  USGS first navigating the site.  It makes me wonder why news about the tremors could not link us directly to the site with information and relevance.  Well, here I am and done it for those interested on information about earthquakes in the Philippines.

Below is what I copy/pasted from the Philvolcs site for the time frame as stated in the title:


Philippine Standard Time (PST) is eight hours ahead of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). (PST = UTC + 8H) UTC is the time standard for which the world regulates clocks and time.
Earthquakes in this list with their date and time underlined in blue have reported felt intensities. Intensity ratings are based on the PHIVOLCS Earthquake Intensity Scale.
Magnitudes in the list are color-coded: below magnitude 5.0 (M < 5.0) are in black, magnitudes 5.0 but below 6.0 (5.0 ≤ M < 6.0) are in blue,  magnitudes 6.0 and above (M ≥ 6.0) are in red.
DATE  - TIME               LATITUDE   LONGITUDE   DEPTH   MAGNITUDE       LOCATION
(PST)                           ( °N )        ( °E )      ( km )      ( Ms )
24 Feb 2011 - 02:22 AM         08.96       126.60       040          2.6         045 km S 71° E of Tandag (Surigao del Sur)
23 Feb 2011 - 02:30 AM         17.48       119.73       033          2.6         074 km S 82° W of Vigan, Ilocos Sur
22 Feb 2011 - 09:55 PM         18.20       120.88       009          2.7         032 km S 89° E of Laoag City
22 Feb 2011 - 08:42 PM         12.56       122.57       022          2.0         002 km S 03° W of Romblon (Romblon)
22 Feb 2011 - 12:20 PM         14.09       120.41       112          2.6         024 km N 86° W of Nasugbu (Batangas)
22 Feb 2011 - 10:10 AM         14.13       120.39       108          4.7         028 km N 75° W of Nasugbu (Batangas)
22 Feb 2011 - 06:06 AM         06.14       126.14       021          2.9         089 km S 05° W of Mati (Davao Oriental)
22 Feb 2011 - 02:09 AM         17.65       120.05       011          2.9         038 km N 78° W of Vigan (Ilocos Sur)
20 Feb 2011 - 12:00 AM         09.48       125.21       004          3.2         036 km S 79° W of Mainit (Surigao Del Norte)
19 Feb 2011 - 10:20 PM         11.37       124.99       005          3.5         011 km S 32° E of Santa Rita (Samar)
19 Feb 2011 - 07:43 PM         18.59       119.38       012          3.3         137 km N 63° W of Currimao (Ilocos Norte)
19 Feb 2011 - 10:27 AM         08.30       123.31       007          1.5         032 km S 6° W of Dipolog City
19 Feb 2011 - 08:10 AM         14.32       120.29       113          4.5         049 km S 34° W of Balanga (Bataan)
19 Feb 2011 - 02:46 AM         12.94       123.46       016          2.9         014 km N 78° W of Dansol (Sorsogon)
18 Feb 2011 - 08:39 PM         11.63       124.26       001          3.7         013 km S 61° W of Kawayan (Biliran, Island)
18 Feb 2011 - 06:28 PM         09.96       125.90       034          3.1         027 km N 37° W of Dapa (Siargao)
18 Feb 2011 - 06:20 AM         16.49       120.53       014          5.0         009 km N 61° W of La Trinidad (Benguet)
18 Feb 2011 - 05:42 AM         09.54       125.26       010          3.5         036 km S 45° W of Surigao City
17 Feb 2011 - 02:25 PM         16.45       120.55       023          2.8         006 km N 83° W of La Trinidad (Benguet)
17 Feb 2011 - 02:25 PM         16.34       120.50       008          3.1         007 km S 12° E of Baguio City
17 Feb 2011 - 11:54 AM         16.40       120.53       009          3.3         008 km N 68° W of La Trinidad (Benguet)
17 Feb 2011 - 01:51 AM         12.22       121.82       007          2.3         063 km S 52° W of Romblon (Romblon)
16 Feb 2011 - 11:51 PM         11.85       125.46       001          3.6         027 km N 07° E of Borongan ( Eastern Samar)
16 Feb 2011 - 09:33 PM         08.41       122.34       032          3.4         113 km S 80° W of Dipolog City
16 Feb 2011 - 04:13 PM         03.44       126.59       075          4.5         337 km S 28° E of General Santos City

Reference:  http://earthquake.phivolcs.dost.gov.ph/update_SOEPD/EQLatest.html

Baguio Earthquakes - Feb. 17 & 18, 2011

Baguio City has been struck by quite strong earthquakes within 24 hours, from the afternoon of Thursday, February 17, 2011 and early morning of February 18, 2011.  A search I did on the USGS does not show any information on the two successive tremors on the afternoon of 02/17/2011.  What only shows is the one of 02/18/2011 and here are the details:

Magnitude    4.7

Date-Time    Thursday, February 17, 2011 at 22:20:53 UTC

                     Friday, February 18, 2011 at 06:20:53 AM at

                     epicenter

Location      16.520°N, 120.410°E

Depth          52.8 km (32.8 miles)

Region         LUZON, PHILIPPINES

Distances    25 km (15 miles) WNW of Baguio, Luzon, Phil.

                    55 km (35 miles) N of Dagupan, Luzon, Phil.

                    130 km (80 miles) NNW of Cabanatuan, Luzon,

                    Phil.

                    220 km (135 miles) NNW of MANILA, Phil.

Mild intensity Earthquakes that occur in Baguio reminds those who experienced the devastating 7.4 tremor of July 16, 1990, the fear it has struck in their minds.

Related Story/Report.

Typhoons and Storms

Both Tropical Storm Ketsana a.k.a "Ondoy" in September 26 and the Oct. 3 landfall of Typhoon Parma a.k.a "Pepeng" seemed to be the most devastating typhoons in my 55 years of existence! I thought that the typhoons (3 or 4 of them all at the same time) in 1970 was the worst because it was said that the floods in Central Luzon had practically divided the Luzon Island! I was just a teener then and did not care much about property damage. As far as I can recall, there were no really large catastrophies and a large number of casualties then as what Ondoy and Pepeng had caused. Back then, we thought it was something like what the Bible says about 40 days and 40 nights of rain! Classes were suspended for weeks if not a month.

Baguio City and La Trinidad were not experiencing floods and landslides as it experiences nowadays! The 3 feet-by-3 feet canal running beside our house then did not even overflow! The only solution to this is to delay and slow down the flow of rainwater. Fast flowing water scours its passages and dumps water in waterways faster than it could accomodate.

As of this writing, another typhoon threatens Northern and Central Luzon. Internationally known as Lupit locally named as Ramil. Lupit is a Filipino word that means cruel or brutal. We sincerely hope that it will not be as cruel and brutal as Ketsana (Ondoy) and Parma (Pepeng), if ever it crosses again Luzon.

Credits: Photo courtesy of Fidel A. Demot on his Facebook post http://www.facebook.com/fdemot#/album.php?aid=116629&id=557009013&ref=mf MORE PHOTOS ON THIS LINK