Taken by Storm: The Use of ICT in Weather Forcasting

Inquirer.net featured a story today wherein the president gave the weather bureau chief Prisco Nilo a bit of a tongue lashing for having failed to update its bulletin on typhoon Basyang's track. The president also mentioned that instead of landing in Aurora where PAGASA said it would, Basyang struck the metropolis, toppling power lines and trees.

Nilo explained that the bureau’s model allowed it to only issue bulletins every six hours. On a personal note: that fateful night in less than six hours the weather turned from a comfortable drizzly cold I-could-sleep-in-this-weather-with-no-electric-fan-for-the-first-time-in-months into a I-can’t-sleep-because-I-think-my-roof-is-about-to-be-blown-off-leaving-me-homeless kind of weather. I copied the satellite image below just before i went to sleep (to keep track of where the storm was heading) and just four hours later the whole of Metro Manila was feeling the full force of Basyang.

Later on PAGASA stated that its telecommunication system (read: internet connection) needed to be automated for easy and swift transfer of data from field stations to the forecasting center in Quezon City which would require some P1.8 billion. Yeah right.

And as if to more articulately voice out this sentiment, Inquirer.net presented Mike Padua, a Naga City-based amateur meteorologist who has his own storm tracking site and who correctly predicted Basyang would head for Metro Manila. With his love of meteorology and intense study, Padua has become a viable source of information on storms in the country and has helped the Naga City government deal with storms. Padua said, among other things, that PAGASA should use resources on the Internet for information on coming storms stating that “There are many websites officially recognized by many agencies.”

Information Communication Technology has had a profound effect on the capabilities of persons with ready information at their fingertips. It has made it possible for people like Padua, outfitted simply with information accessible from the internet and without any seemingly special sort of meteorological equipment, to become a trusted source of storm predictions at times more accurate that a fully funded government agency specifically tasked with the responsibility of predicting the weather.

Linus Madamba
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