Active systems
5
Habagat + LPA + peripheral
Five active systems, zero PAR entries, no administrative sailing ban. Twelve percent of national capacity is exposed on the west coast. Eighty-eight percent sits east of the Cordillera, in the lee. The binding constraint is sea state, not rain. The Q4 dry-scenario window extension is the trade that matters — not any single week's rainfall.
On the morning of the tenth, Metro Manila and CALABARZON were under an orange rainfall warning; Zambales was under a gale warning on the west seaboard; a low-pressure area sat northwest of Luzon feeding moisture into the habagat. Five weather features are visible on the analysis chart. Zero are typhoons inside the Philippine Area of Responsibility, which is the administrative trigger for a coastwise sailing ban. The distinction matters — the habagat can drop the rain of a storm without invoking the paperwork of one.
Rainfall accumulations for the twenty-four hours to 08:00 local ran 200+ mm on the western Zambales coast, 120–160 mm across Metro Manila and Bataan, and single-digit millimetres east of the Sierra Madre. The pattern is textbook habagat orographic: southwest low-level flow, forced ascent along the west-facing cordillera, extreme rainfall on windward slopes, dry subsidence on the lee side. It is not a national event. It is a west-coast event.
For Philippine nickel that geography is decisive. Zambales is the only mining district with a west-facing coastline of national scale, and its share of Philippine WMT is 12%. The remainder of national output loads out of Surigao, Dinagat and East Samar — the archipelago's eastern seaboard, sheltered by two thousand vertical metres of Cordillera and Sierra Madre. In the ledger of what actually loads a bulker this week, this event moves zero to twelve percent of national capacity. It moves nothing else.
The map below overlays the eight material Philippine nickel districts on the rainfall band. Windward = orange (Zambales, N Palawan, S Palawan). Leeward = cyan (Surigao Norte, Dinagat, Surigao Sur, Homonhon / E Samar). Circle radius is proportional to national-share WMT. Read it as an exposure map.
| District | Coast face | Nat'l share | Exposure | Op mode this week | Delay est |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zambales (W Luzon) | WEST | 12% | HIGH · gale + rain | Barge liftings paused | 3–5 D |
| Bucao / Sta Cruz sand | WEST | 0% (non-nickel) | HIGH · flood | Halted | 3–7 D |
| N Palawan | WEST | 6% | MED · rain, no gale | Slow · sea state OK inshore | 1–2 D |
| S Palawan (Rio Tuba / Bataraza) | SW | 16% | LOW-MED · rain reduced | Operating; wet-basis TML watch | 0–1 D |
| Surigao Norte core | EAST | 38% | NONE · in the lee | Full loadout | 0 D |
| Dinagat | EAST | 8% | NONE | Full loadout | 0 D |
| Surigao Sur | EAST | 12% | NONE | Full loadout | 0 D |
| Homonhon / E Samar | EAST | 8% | NONE | Full loadout | 0 D |
Aggregate windward exposure sums to 34% of national share if S Palawan and N Palawan are included. Deducting S Palawan — which sits under reduced-orographic conditions on the southwest tip and is operating — the hard-exposed block is Zambales + N Palawan + windward auxiliary flow: 18% capacity gross, of which only the 12% Zambales block is under an active operational pause. The other 6% is running on inshore barges within the wind shadow. This is the number to hold in mind: the weekly weather signal moves 12% at most.
Six transmission dashboards. Each one asks: does this weather feature reach the loading number? The answer for most of them is no.
Two seasonal dashboards. The rain probability charts belong to Q3. The trade that actually matters belongs to Q4: how many extra dry-loading weeks are added if the northeast monsoon arrival is late.
The main-line Philippine broadcaster on the ground with same-day footage from Metro Manila and Zambales. Watch it for the operational context — evacuation, road closures, orange rainfall warning — then note the geography. Everything shown is west of the Cordillera.
Wider international frame: enhanced habagat pulled by a peripheral tropical cyclone. Useful context for the difference between a monsoon that dumps rain on a windward strip and a PAR-tracked typhoon that triggers a nationwide loading pause.
A dedicated meteorologist's read on the southwest monsoon and why it delivers extreme rainfall to windward slopes. Watch this if you want to understand the physics behind the 200 mm number and why Surigao gets 14 mm on the same day.
Trigger for a Philippine supply event: a named tropical cyclone entering PAR. Not rainfall. Not gale warnings. Not habagat. Track the JTWC / PAGASA advisories, not the news headlines — this week the news is national, the supply signal is not.
Tropical cyclone entering PAR. This is the only weather signal that automatically translates to a supply signal. Anything short of it is west-coast noise.
72h+ gale on the east seaboard. The lee-side geography that protects Surigao today only holds against SW flow. A NE-quadrant push around a passing typhoon would flip the exposure — that is the trade the market underprices.
Late NE monsoon onset (Nov–Dec). If the northeast monsoon slips six weeks, Surigao loads through mid-January without weather interruption. Every day is directly a WMT surplus against ID smelter feed.