THERE are times when I think that if it were not for bad luck, I would have no luck at all. It seems that a long weekend that has been planned for a couple of months is going to have an uninvited guest:
This is the map provided by the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical, and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA), which is the national weather bureau of the Philippines, as of 11:00 am local time (GMT +8) on Wednesday, February 4, 2026. That track is the forecast path of a tropical storm called “Basyang.” I am flying to Panglao Island, indicated by the red circle, tomorrow morning (Thursday, Feb. 5), and will be there until Monday, Feb. 9.
Goddammit.
The name is the Philippine name for the storm; it probably has, or will have, a different ‘international’ name, but I don’t know what that is. I prefer the Philippine names, anyway; they do it in alphabetical order, so you know how many have hit the country. I think we got up to ‘W’ last year. This is the second of the year so far.
Believe me, I would not intentionally put myself in the path of a tropical storm. I am not a storm-chaser type. I’ve been through hurricanes and typhoons before, mostly near-misses. When I was still in the US, a couple that stand out in my memory are Hurricane Agnes in 1972, when I was just a stripling, and Hurricane Isabel in 2002, which hit the east coast in North Carolina the day after I moved in with my brother in Virginia Beach. Here in the Philippines, I’ve gotten winged by more storms than I can count, and experienced one direct hit – as in, the whole thing with the eye passing overhead and all that – with Typhoon Milenyo in 2007. Typhoons and hurricanes (same thing) suck, and I do not like them.
It is what it is, I guess. As I said when the first warnings were raised about the approaching storm, I can hit the beach or use the pool in the rain. I’ll already be wet.
The thing that is a little alarming about this storm is that in most years, the “typhoon season” (we get about 20 a year here in the Philippines) typically runs from about April to November, with a bit of a break due to the usual winter weather patterns early in the year. But this year, we’ve already had two since Christmas, and in the 20+ years I’ve been here, I cannot remember that happening.
Climate change is real, folks, and for some parts of the world – like the one I live in – the consequences are already almost a daily occurrence. We can certainly debate what to do about it, but anyone who still questions whether or not it is actually happening should be publicly mocked and shamed.