Tropical troublemakers heading for Australia and the Philippines

Whilst having a look at what the weather is doing around the world today, I noticed that there are two tropical troublemakers.

One is Tropical Depression Peipah, which is heading towards the Philippines. The other is Severe Tropical Cyclone Ita, which is moving towards Australia.

Both will bring the usual hazards of wind, rain and flooding, although each to varying degrees, given their respective strengths. 

Severe Tropical Cyclone Ita

Ita is currently located just to the south of the small outlying Islands in the east of Papua New Guinea, drifting slowly westwards.

Currently a category three storm, it has steady winds of 85mph, with gusts of around 105mph.

During the next few days, Ita is expected to strengthen further, gathering more energy from the warm ocean waters, before reaching the coast of northern Queensland on Friday morning, local time.

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology has yet to issue any detailed warnings, but heavy rain and damaging winds will bring a significant risk of causing problems, including flooding.

Tropical Depression Peipah

Peipah is a much weaker tropical depression, but threatens the central and northern Philippines with heavy rain and flash flooding this weekend.

Although the Peipah isn’t expected to strengthen much, tropical depressions tend to move slower than typhoons. This gives them more time to dump intense rain on one place for longer – increasing the flood risk.

Weather computer models are suggesting that 200mm of rain could fall, with more than this acros higher elevations.

Given that some parts of the Philippines are mountainous, the heavy rain will have the potential to cause deadly mudslides.