Better weather forecasts for Valenzuela folk

VALENZUELA City residents will soon receive more accurate rain forecasts and flood warnings with the installation of an Automated Weather Station (AWS), the local government said on Saturday.

The AWS, which will be installed in the Action Center compound in Barangay Dalandanan, will monitor temperature, atmospheric pressure, humidity, solar radiation, wind speed, wind direction and the amount of rain- fall— data which can be processed for transmission and dissemination every 10 minutes.

The system will be run by officers from the City Disaster Risk Reduction Management Office (CDRRMO), who will then send out weather information and alerts.

The data from the AWS system are expected to complement those coming from the Department of Science and Technology’s Advanced Sci- ence and Technology Institute and the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa).

Valenzuela City Mayor Sherwin Gatchalian said the AWS, which was provided by the nonprofit Weather Philippines Foundation and the League of Cities of the Philippines, will help the city respond to emergencies during severe weather.

“Extreme weather distur- bances like (the 2009 killer storm) Ondoy and (last year’s) habagat brought so much unexpected rain which flooded most parts of Metro Manila and Central Luzon,” he recalled in the statement.

“Having a gauge for the amount of rain in a certain area could help a lot in our response system and contingency measures, especially now that the weather is really erratic,” he added.