Weather: Monsoon trough to bring rain to parts of PHL

A shallow low-pressure area that could have become a cyclone dissipated last night, but rain still looms over parts of the country due to a monsoon trough, state weather forecasters said Monday. The Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration said the monsoon trough is particularly affecting Southern Luzon and Visayas. "Naglaho na ang (SLPA) na ating binabantayan. Kagabi meron pa pero ngayon wala na (The SLPA was still there Sunday night but it eventually dissipated)," PAGASA forecaster Ben Oris said in an interview on dzBB radio. Had the SLPA become a cyclone, it would have been locally codenamed "Nonoy." A monsoon trough is a part of the Inter-tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) that is a convergence zone between the wind patterns of the southern and northern hemispheres. The TropicalWeather.net site said tropical cyclones can form from a disturbance in the monsoon trough. Science Undersecretary Graciano Yumul Jr. earlier described a monsoon trough as a region of clouds, rain, low-level convergence and rising air. In the meantime, Oris said Southern Luzon and the Visayas can expect cloudy skies with rain showers and thunderstorms. PAGASA's 5 a.m. bulletin added the rest of the country will be partly cloudy to cloudy with isolated rainshowers or thunderstorms. "Light to moderate winds blowing from the Southwest to west will prevail over the country. The coastal waters throughout the archipelago will be slight to moderate," it said. — RSJ, GMA News