BALIWAG, Bulacan—The Philippine weather bureau is now another step closer to its goal of localized weather forecasting.
This came as SM City Baliwag launched on Monday its automated weather station (AWS) making it the 39th of SM’s 47 malls across the country to operate its own online weather instrument.
Engineer Emmanuel Gatmaitan, building administrator of SM City Baliwag, said weather forecasts from their AWS can now be accessed through the website of the Weather Philippines Foundation (www.weather.com.ph).
“People can now see weather forecast in their locality through weather.com.ph,” said Gatmaitan. He explained that their recently launched AWS is just one of many. Records showed that Weather Philippines Foundation and its partners have installed 1,480 AWS across the country by the end of August. Additional 500 AWS will be installed by the end of the year.
Gatmaitan said that installation of additional AWS is part of the efforts of WPF, SM Investment Foundation and their partners’ efforts to reduce weather related disaster risks in the country.
An AWS has the capability to forecast amount of rainfall within a 20-kilometer radius, along with wind speed, direction, temperature and humidity.
Other AWS have even wider radius. According to Architect Andrew Cristobal, SM City Baliwag Mall manager, their AWS was meant to keep the people informed. He said: “All they have to do is access weather.com online to monitor their weather.”
SM City Baliwag’s AWS is made possible by the partnership between SM Investment Foundation and WPF which also partnered with Meteomedia of Switzerland and other private sponsors.
