Cloudy skies, rain expected across PHL; PAGASA monitors TS Hagibis outside PAR

Partly cloudy to cloudy skies and isolated rainshowers should be expected over Metro Manila and the rest of the country within the next few hours, PAGASA said Sunday as it continues to monitor Tropical Storm Hagibis outside the Philippine Area of Responsibility.

In its 24-hour public weather forecast on Sunday. the state weather bureau, the conditions are brought about by localized thunderstorms.

In its 4 p.m. video update, PAGASA weather specialist Gener Quitlong also said that a low-pressure area the bureau had been monitoring has left the Philippine Area of Responsibility and become merely a shallow LPA bringing some clouds to extreme northern Luzon.

Meanwhile, a tropical storm with the international name Hagibis has developed outside PAR and is located 3,235 kilometers east of Luzon as of 3 p.m. Sunday, too far to affect the country. Hagibis has maximum sustained winds of 85 kph and gustiness of 105 kph, and is moving west at 30 kph.

If its speed and direction does not change, Hagibis could enter PAR by Thursday or Friday. There is also a chance it will have developed into a typhoon by then, Quitlong added.

Hagibis is by current data not expected to make landfall in the Philippines, but PAGASA is monitoring its progress in case it becomes a typhoon or even a super typhoon, the weather specialist said. — Julia Mari Ornedo/BM, GMA News