Nando Ragasa strengthens as it nears northern Luzon

Super Typhoon Nando Ragasa continued to rapidly strengthen over the Philippine Sea and was forecast to pass close to or make landfall in the extreme north of Luzon between Monday and Tuesday, prompting storm warnings, preemptive evacuations and no-sail orders across exposed provinces. The Philippine weather bureau said the system would also enhance the southwest monsoon, bringing heavy to torrential rain to wide swaths of Luzon and raising the risk of floods, landslides and storm surge.

PAGASA bulletins issued from Thursday through Sunday show a rapid escalation in Nando's intensity as it moved west northwestward. The agency reported the system had progressed from a tropical depression on Thursday to a tropical storm and then to a typhoon and ultimately a super typhoon by the weekend, with maximum sustained winds rising from about 55 kilometers per hour on Thursday to more than 180 km/h in later updates. PAGASA warned the storm could maintain strength or intensify further as it approached the Batanes and Babuyan Islands area and said landfall could occur as early as Monday late morning to afternoon or by Monday evening, depending on successive updates.