'Falcon' continues to move away from RP, gets stronger

Typhoon “Falcon" continued to move away from the Philippines even as it gained strength, the state weather agency reported Friday. Falcon (international name: Nari) was located at 2 p.m. to be 740 kilometers northeast of Basco town in the extreme northern Luzon island-province of Batanes, the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) said in its 5 p.m. advisory. The typhoon was detected northeast of the island-nation of Taiwan and heading toward China. It was moving west-northwest at 22 kph. Falcon packed maximum sustained winds of 140 kilometers per hour near the center, with gustiness of 170 kph. In its earlier advisory at 10:45 a.m., Pagasa had said the typhoon packed 120-kph winds with gusts of 150 kph. Falcon intensified from a tropical storm to a typhoon early Friday. Pagasa also said it spotted a new low-pressure area 1,020 km east of Northern Luzon. It is forecast that Southern Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao will have cloudy skies with scattered rainshowers or thunderstorms. The rest of the country will be partly cloudy with isolated rainshowers or thunderstorms. -GMANews.TV