page_title: Typhoon Muifa (2004)
section_title: Philippines
hierarchical_section_title: Typhoon Muifa (2004) / Impact / Philippines
caption_attribution_description: English: Partial rainfall totals from Typhoon Muifa.
context_page_description: Typhoon Muifa, known in the Philippines as Typhoon Unding, was a strong typhoon during the 2004 Pacific typhoon season. The name Muifa is taken from the ume blossom.
  The first of four consecutive tropical cyclones to strike the Philippines, a tropical disturbance became Tropical Depression 29W on November 14 and strengthened into Tropical Storm Muifa in the early of the 15th when centered east-southeast of Manila, the Philippines. Muifa turned back onto a west-northwest heading and intensified. It reached typhoon intensity on the 17th just prior to beginning a two-day clockwise loop. Late on the 18th, Muifa's intensity peaked at 130 mph, still to the east of the Philippines. Unding, as PAGASA named it, made landfall very late on the 19th near Naga City with maximum winds of 80 mph. The storm briefly lost typhoon strength for a day until it regained typhoon intensity in the South China Sea on the 21st. Muifa held onto typhoon status until late on the 23rd when its weakened to a tropical storm once more. By early on the 26th, a weakening Tropical Depression Muifa was located 250 nm south of Bangkok, Thailand.
context_section_description: There was an area of extreme rainfall measuring possibly 40 inches (1,000 mm) just east off the coast of southern Luzon. Much of southern Luzon and other portions of central Philippines received rainfall between 10 and 20 inches (510 mm). Catanduanes and extreme southeastern Luzon might have been blanketed in as much as 35 inches (890 mm) of rain though. Naga City only received a total of 8.26 inches (210 mm) of rainfall, but it was enough to flood some low-lying areas. The highest 24-hour rainfall amount from the Philippines was 246.4 mm at Catanduanes between midday the 15th and 16th. The passing of four cyclones in a short period of time as mentioned above caused a great deal of damage. Over 1,400 people either died or were missing, mostly from Winnie. Rainfall from all systems was extremely high.
  The lowest pressure at Naga City was 986.1 mb early on the 16th. Because of the high rainfall, over 3,000 people had to be evacuated from the lowlands. A wind gust of 130 km/h (80 mph) coming from the north was measured in Naga City.
  The death toll reported from the Philippines was 68 dead, 160 injured, and 69 unaccounted for. Most of the casualties were adults, but two infants succumbed to hypothermia, as did an elderly man in Catanduanes. Another twelve of those people were killed by a tornado associated with the storm that ripped through the coastal towns in Oriental Mindoro province. A total of 26,238 houses were destroyed and 76,062 damaged, with 40 of those homes being in Cataduanes. Some areas reported 80% of the trees and electricity posts were destroyed. Total damage in the Philippines reached 1.01 billion pesos ($17.96 million 2004 USD, November 26, 2004 exchange rate). At least fifteen provinces were affected by Unding.
caption: Rainfall from Muifa from November 13 to the 18th
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop 7.0", "Image DateTime": "2004:11:19 17:05:50", "Image ExifOffset": "156", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "294", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4983", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "680", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "488"}