Tropical Storm 'LUPIT' Strengthens to 55 Kts. - Major Philippines Typhoon Possible

It is unfortunately looking very bad for northern Luzon in the Philippines. Typhoon Lupit is about 315 miles ENE of the NE tip of Luzon, and moving WSW at 9 kts. A couple days ago Lupit got tugged to the north by a trough passing to its north, and even moved NE for a time. But the ridge has built back in to the north and has turned Lupit back toward the Philippines.

The latest discussions from JTWC indicate much uncertainty about the future track of Lupit. The forecast had been (up until about 12 hours ago) for Lupit to continue WSW, passing near or over northern Luzon then continuing into the South China Sea. Recently however, a few models (most notably the GFS) are forecasting Lupit to slow down and then recurve NE just before reaching Luzon. The official forecast maintains the WSW movement but slows the storm down to less than 5 kts. as it crosses the island. This would certainly be a disastrous situation should it occur. Hopefully the GFS may prove to be correct and the storm recurve away without causing too much in the way of flooding.

One bit of good news is that Lupit has "weakened" to just an 80 kt. typhoon, down from the 135 kt. supertyphoon it was several days ago. The storm ingested some dry air and went through an eywall replacement cycle which caused the weakening. It may regain a little strength over the next day or so but probably only to category 2 strength.

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