Typhoon Usagi threatens Philippines, latest in string of storms

MANILA — The Philippines is bracing for its fifth powerful storm in three weeks, with Super Typhoon Usagi set to strike the country’s north on Thursday afternoon before tracking toward Taiwan.
Usagi, known locally as Ofel, has maximum sustained winds of 185 kilometres (115 miles) per hour, according to the Philippines’ weather bureau. The typhoon is expected to clip the northeastern rice-growing province of Cagayan, where authorities have ordered evacuations from coastal areas.
Storms sapped third-quarter growth in the Philippines and have caused at least US$220 million of crop losses in the country this year. Taiwan has also been forced to suspend trading on its stock exchange on three occasions due to typhoons, the first time that’s happened since 2015.
The four storms that have affected the Philippines since late October have all brought concentrated rains to Luzon Island, particularly in the north. Usagi could dump over 200 millimetres (eight inches) across Cagayan and Isabela province through Friday morning, according to the bureau.
Usagi follows Typhoon Toraji and Typhoon Yinxing, which both struck northern Philippines over the past week. Trami and Kong-rey in October were especially destructive, causing more than 7 billion pesos ($119 million) in crop losses, according to government data — more than the total combined agricultural damages caused by storms in the first nine months of the year.
Toraji and Usagi have affected over 300,000 people and displaced nearly 27,000 individuals, according to the nation’s disaster management agency.
Successive storms hitting the Philippines this late in the season is “quite rare, but not impossible,” said Gerry Bagtasa, a professor at the University of the Philippines’ Institute of Environmental Science and Meteorology. He added that it’s a characteristic of La Niña, with a similar event occurring in 2020, the first year of a triple-dip event of the weather phenomenon.
National weather agencies have not yet declared a La Niña this year, but a weak and short-lived one could still emerge.
Over the weekend, another storm — Man-yi — could hit the Philippines. The system is currently over 1,000 kilometres east of Mindanao, according to the weather bureau. The nation sees an average of 20 tropical cyclones a year, making it one of the world’s worst-hit countries.