Typhoon Mawar expected to bring unseasonal rains to Thailand this week
Thailand is expected to see more rain at the end of this month despite not being directly in the path of the evolving Typhoon Mawar, the Thailand Meteorological Department has forecast.
The department reported on Wednesday that the storm was still in the Pacific Ocean and was moving northwest rather than towards the South China Sea.
Seri Suparathit, vice president of the National Disaster Warning Council Foundation, urged residents to set up pools or weirs to store rainwater as a reserve against the impact of El Nino, which is predicted to hit Thailand in August.
He warned that Thailand would not get much rain in August due to El Nino, adding that farmers should pay close attention to weather news during this period.
The department said that Mawar has already evolved from a tropical storm into a typhoon.
Once the maximum sustained wind of the tropical storm exceeds 117 kilometres per hour or more, it would be categorised as a typhoon, hurricane, or cyclone, depending on where the storm starts on the world map.
Two weather agencies -- Joint Typhoon Warning Centre, and Japan Meteorological Agency -- forecast that Mawar could intensify into a "super typhoon" by Friday as a result of the Pacific Ocean’s sea surface temperature rising to 29 to 30 degrees Celsius.
The term "super typhoon" is used when a typhoon’s sustained wind strength reaches 240 km/h.
As the storm is heading from the eastern part of the Philippines to Taiwan, it is projected to slow down due to cooler sea temperatures there, they said.
