Every year, the country is beset with deadly typhoons that cause massive losses amounting to death tolls reaching between 1,000 and 2,000. While the government is still struggling to repair catastrophic damages caused by typhoon Haiyan, a major storm that devastated the lives of more than 10,000 Filipinos, the onset of the storm season this year just announced itself with typhoon Glenda, and the most recent, typhoon Mario. Authorities reported that with Typhoon Haiyan, much of the problem lied on people not being fully informed of the strength of the typhoon and the consequences of a storm surge. As a result, a large component of preparations this year has been angled towards education and disaster risk reduction.

 Typhoon Tracking and Climate-Sensitivity

Seeing how crucial timely responses to variable weather conditions are, Weather Philippines sought to deploy 1,000 Automated Weather Stations (AWS) nationwide. Automated Weather Stations (AWS) enable near real time reporting of weather measurements from remote areas in the country. As of September 2014, a total of 554 AWS were deployed nationwide, covering major cities and provincial capitols in the country. In addition, Weather Philippines also had more than 560 provincial risk reduction personnel, environmental officers and city engineers trained on both the AWS installation and the use of Weather Philippines' website  weather.com.ph .

 Risk Adaptation for Community Empowerment

In line with this, WPF will also continue its efforts by providing skills development and capability building trainings to local government leaders, and public information and disaster risk reduction officers. This 2014, WPF will start conducting the basic meteorological trainings: Weather 101 and Tropical Cyclone 101, complemented with disaster response, and search and rescue training by WPF's partner, Center for Outdoor Recreation and Expedition (C.O.R.E.) Team of the Primer Group.  The purpose is to help local communities understand the basic concepts, processes and effects of different weather disturbances and rain-producing weather systems in the country so they can create their own disaster preparedness programs to reduce the impacts of weather-related disasters. In fulfilment of the project, WPF, together with the League of Provinces of the Philippines and the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation, Inc., will hand over automated weather stations to six (5) priority meteorological sites in Bohol. This includes Talibon, Pres. Carlos P. Garia, Tubigon, Anda, and Panglao. "Our mission is to rollout 1,000 AWS nationwide with local government equipped to maintain and secure the units and a dedicated technical team to interpret information. This is in line with the ultimate goal of avoiding the loss of life and property that also complements the government's efforts in reducing weather-related risks," shares Celso Caballero III, General Manager of WeatherPhilippines Foundation.

ABOUT WEATHERPHILIPPINES FOUNDATION

Weather Philippines is formed by the Aboitiz Group, UnionBank, and leading Switzerland-based weather services organization international (formerly Meteomedia) to address the need to provide the Philippines with world-class weather information systems. Operating a premiere weather forecasting system, Weather Philippines provides free and accurate weather forecasts as a public service to the Filipino nation.