Tropical Depression 05W Update #2

Tropical Depression 05W intensified a little bit overnight and was able to improve its overall structure. TD 05W was last located approximately 400km south southwest of Guam or about 650km east of Yap Island. Maximum sustained winds are now at 55kph gusting to 75kph. TD 05W is currently moving westward at 15kph.

As of 6am today, Tropical Storm Warning has been issued by the National Weather Service for Fais and Ulithi Islands in Yap State. A Tropical Storm Watch is issued for Yap.

IR Image from NRLMRY

As expected, Tropical Depression 05W was able to resume development overnight with cooling cloud tops particularly near the center. The size of convective activity has generally increased as well. Microwave images also depict banding continue to form. Conditions remain favorable along the forecast track and we expect 05W to become a Tropical Storm later today.

TD 05W will continue moving westward and will move near Yap by late Wednesday night. TS-force winds will start affecting Yap by Wednesday and could last into Thursday. 05W will then continue intensifying and could enter the Philippine Area of Responsibility by Thursday. PAGASA will assign the local name 'Butchoy' once it enters the PAR. Computer models are starting to get a better handling on 05W and most of them take the storm on a westward course through Friday before turning to the northwest. We are still expecting 05W to miss the Philippines although forecast tracks continue to shift to the west. We'll wait for more trends and model outputs to see if we'll shift our own forecast to the west.

We'll have another update later this afternoon.
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Issued (22 UTC) 6am PhT 061212