Very active WestPac - Ketsana, TD #18 and more

Typhoon Parma is very near the northeast coast of Luzon. After a weakening trend for the last 36 hours, possible due to some shear and some interaction with some of the higher terrain of the islands, Parma seems to be getting a little better organized as it approaches the coast. The outflow seems to be improving and the cloud tops are cooling, and the T-numbers are coming up. It likely will make landfall in the next few hours over Cagayan province and spend just a few hours over land before emerging over the Luzon strait. Earlier forecasts had the storm coming in farther south and spending much more time over land and causing considerable weakening, perhaps to tropical storm strength. With the more northward track, it will likely not weaken a whole lot as it clips the coast and will likely emerge still a typhoon. In any event, steering currents are collapsing and Parma is expected to nearly stall just north of Luzon.

At that point there are a number of possibilities. The discussion from the JTWC gave 3 possible scenarios for Parma:

1) - Parma stalls for a while, then heads out to the northeast as ridging builds to its east in the wake of Typhoon Melor.
2) - Parma stalls for a while, then ridging building east from China steers the storm to the west.
3) - Parma stalls for a while, then interaction from Typhoon Melor approacing from the east causes an east or southeast movement, then eventually northeast.

Up until this morning the JTWC had favored scenario #2. Then at the 2100z advisory they switched to scenario #1. As I'm typing this, the 0300z advisory is in and they have switched again to scenario #3, turning the storm sharply east after 48 hours. The discussion cites much improved model consistency on this idea. We will see how it turns out.

Bottom line though is more flooding rains for the Philippines. The one good thing is that the central part of Luzon that got hammered by Ketsana won't get the worst of it. The worst will be in northeast Luzon especially Cagayan province, where the terrain is rugged and there will likely be major flooding and mudslides. Hopefully Parma will move through quickly enough and get far enough clear of the island to keep the flooding somewhat in check.

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