A tropical depression has developed into a storm after entering the East Vietnam Sea, becoming this year’s first typhoon forecast to hit Vietnam.

The low-pressure system, which formed in the southern Philippines on Monday, reached the southern part of the East Vietnam Sea on Tuesday night.

By Wednesday morning, it had gathered enough strength to become a typhoon, named Bolaven, which is Vietnam’s first storm in 2018.

According to the National Center for Hydro-meteorological Forecasting, Typhoon Bolaven was 210 kilometers southeast of Vietnam’s Truong Sa (Spratly) Archipelago at 7:00 am on Wednesday.

Average wind speed was recorded at 60 to 75km per hour, with squalls at up to 102km an hour.

The storm is expected to travel northwestward at 25km per hour in the next 24 hours.

By 7:00 am on Thursday, it will have been located 250 kilometers east of the coastline of Ninh Thuan and Binh Thuan Provinces in the south-central region.

The storm is likely to be downgraded before making landfall, said Le Thanh Hai, director of the forecasting center.

It is anticipated to weaken into a tropical depression in the next 24 to 36 hours, before traveling southwestward and becoming a low-pressure zone.

Vietnam was affected by a total of 16 storms in 2017.

The first typhoon, Merbok, entered the East Vietnam Sea in early June, while the last, storm Tembin, threatened the southern region in late December.

The most devastating typhoon was Damrey, the twelfth one, which directly hit south-central Vietnamese provinces in early November, killing about 106 people.

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