Typhoon Kong-Rey to Skirt the Philippines on Track for Taiwan

Tropical Cyclone Kong-Rey has intensified into a typhoon and is threatening to bring strong winds and torrential rain to the northern Philippines, before tracking toward Taiwan and making landfall.

Kong-Rey — known locally in the Philippines as Leon — has maximum sustained winds of 130 kilometers (81 miles) per hour, according to the latest advisory from the nation’s weather bureau Tuesday. That makes the storm equivalent to a Category 1 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale.