China's weather and emergency management authorities have raised their alert and emergency response levels for Typhoon Matmo -- the 21st named storm of the 2025 Pacific typhoon season -- as it continues to strengthen and heads toward the country's southern coast.
The National Meteorological Center on Saturday evening raised its existing orange typhoon alert to red, which is the highest level in its four-tier alert system, warning that Matmo is approaching the coasts of the Guangdong and Hainan provinces and is expected to make landfall around noon on Sunday.
At 6 pm Saturday, the center of Matmo was located over the South China Sea, about 400 km southeast of Wenchang city in Hainan, packing winds of up to 35 meters per second near its center, according to the Hainan provincial meteorological station.
The typhoon is forecast to move northwest at speeds of 20 to 25 km per hour, gradually intensifying and potentially reaching severe-typhoon level, with wind-speed highs of 42 to 45 meters per second.
The State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters has upgraded the emergency flood and typhoon response levels in Guangdong and Hainan to Level III, and maintained a Level-IV emergency flood response in Guangxi. Local authorities of Hainan raised the emergency typhoon response to Level I -- the highest alert level -- at 7 pm Saturday.