Typhoon Parma hits the Philippines as a Catgeory 1 typhoon

Typhoon Parma made landfall as a Category 1 typhoon with 90 mph winds and torrential rains over the northern portion of the Philippines' Luzon Island early Saturday morning. Parma had been a very dangerous Category 4 typhoon just 24 hours prior to landfall, but interaction of the storm with the high mountain range along the Philippines' east coast disrupted the storm as it approached landfall. As a result, Parma is dumping less rain than feared, and its path along the extreme northern coast of Luzon is keeping the typhoon's rains well north of the capital of Manila, which is still recovering from the 16+ inches of rain dumped by Typhoon Ketsana a week ago. A query of airports in northern Luzon Island done using our interactive wundermap reveals that Parma has dumped between two and six inches of rain over the past two days. Some isolated regions may receive up to twenty inches of rain, according to the latest satellite-based rainfall forecast for Parma (Figure 2). While rains of this magnitude will cause significant damage to localized regions, a major disaster with hundreds of lives lost now appears unlikely in the Philippines due to Typhoon Parma.


Figure 1. Total estimated rainfall from last weeks's Typhoon Ketsana, as estimated by NASA's TRMM satellite. Image credit: NASA/TRMM project.


Figure 2. Forecast rain amounts for Typhoon Parma for the 24-hour period ending at 06 UTC October 4 (2am EDT Sunday). This forecast is based on satellite measurements of Parma's current rainfall rate, plus a projection of the storm's path. Over twelve inches of rain (red colors) is expected along the extreme northern tip of Luzon Island. Image credit: NOAA Satellite Services Division.

Typhoon Melor
Category 4 Typhoon Melor powered through the northern Marianas Islands 90 miles north of Saipan Island this morning. Melor brought sustained winds of 32 mph to Saipan. Melor is expected to recurve to the north pass just south of the coast of Japan next week.

The Atlantic remains quiet
In the Atlantic, there are no threat areas to discuss and none of the computer models are forecasting tropical storm formation over the next seven days.

Atlanta flood relief mission today
The portlight.org charity is delivering a load of relief supplies to one of the families affected by the Atlanta, Georgia floods two weeks ago. You can follow the progress of the mission via the portlight.org webcam today.

Jeff Masters