Tropical Storm Lingling formed at 8am yesterday to the east of the Philippines and is expected to move close to the east coast of Taiwan tomorrow before moving northward, the Central Weather Bureau said.
As of 2pm, the storm’s center was 720km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), moving northwest at 21kph, the bureau said.
Another tropical depression system in the South China Sea, which has the potential to become a tropical storm, was moving at 10kph toward China’s Hainan Province, it said.
Lingling is forecast to draw near southeastern Taiwan this afternoon, but a weak guiding airstream from a Pacific high-pressure system is expected to slow its movement, bureau forecaster Chu Mei-lin (朱美霖) said.
The storm would be at its nearest to Taiwan tomorrow and is likely to still be a tropical storm at the time, Chu said.
Lingling would move north and its circumfluence would bring rain to the east coast tomorrow and on Thursday, she said.
Whether the bureau would issue a sea warning for Lingling would depend on the angle at which it turns north, Chu said.
Should the high-pressure system gain strength, Lingling would move closer to Taiwan, which could lead the bureau to issue a sea warning today, she said.
However, if it remains weak, the storm would probably stay farther away, making a sea warning less likely, she said.
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