Typhoon Matmo Strengthens as It Hits Philippines, on Track to China

Typhoon Matmo intensified as it made landfall in northern Philippines on Friday where it’s forecast to dump heavy rain, with the nation still reeling from the impact of two deadly typhoons in the past two weeks.

Matmo, locally named Paolo, is packing maximum sustained winds of 130 kilometers (81 miles) per hour near the center in the vicinity of San Guillermo in Isabela province, the national weather agency Pagasa said in its latest advisory.

Government work and schools were suspended in northern provinces in the main Luzon island due to the threat posed by the typhoon, GMA News reported. More than a dozen domestic flights were canceled, according to the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines.

Matmo is likely to drop more than 200 millimeters (8 inches) of rain on Isabela, Aurora and Quirino provinces, the weather agency said, warning that widespread incidents of severe flooding and landslides are expected.

After crossing Luzon, Matmo is set to re-emerge into the South China Sea, where warm ocean waters and weak cross-winds will fuel its gradual intensification, according to the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center.

It’s expected to become a severe typhoon with top sustained winds of 155 kilometers per hour — equivalent to a Category 1 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale — prior to making a second landfall in southern China’s Leizhou peninsula, according to the latest forecast from the Hong Kong Observatory.

Parts of Hainan Island, as well as some coastal areas of Guangxi, Yunnan and Guangdong province, could see heavy to torrential trains this weekend and into Monday, according to the China Meteorological Administration. Farmland and crops may be impacted, with the forecaster raising a yellow alert — the lowest of three levels — for agricultural damage from waterlogging and windstorms. Guangxi and Yunnan are major sugar producers.

Typhoon Bualoi recently killed at least 12 people in Vietnam and 27 in the Philippines. Before that, Super Typhoon Ragasa, the most powerful storm worldwide this year, left a trail of destruction from the Philippines to Taiwan and Hong Kong.

The Philippines is among the most storm-prone countries in the world, where about 20 cyclones pass through each year. In 2013, Super Typhoon Haiyan killed more than 6,000 people in the country.