Rain gauges collect data for Philippines' weather bureau

By eGov Innovation Editors | Nov 30, 2011

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The Philippines' weather bureau has started the mass installation of more than 70 automatic solar-powered rain gauges across the country.

The rain gauge apparatus is designed to catch rainfall through a tipping bucket mechanism, which measures and logs water content and automatically sends the data to the weather bureau's database at the central office by telemetry at a frequency and according to parameters set by the agency.

Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) Administrator Dr. Nathaniel T. Servando said the data will be used for weather and flood forecasting and various research projects of the agency.

Co-located with the cell sites of wireless services provider Smart Communications Inc. (Smart), the solar-powered rain gauges will use Smart's SMS solutions and nationwide network coverage to transmit rainfall data from the PAGASA-specified locations to the weather bureau’s head office.

Smart and other service providers have entered into an agreement with the weather bureau in 2010 to allow the co-location of its weather monitoring devices in cell sites strategically located nationwide under a program of the Philippine Disaster Recovery Foundation to help upgrade the country’s flood forecasting system.

Smart Public Affairs head Ramon Isberto said the project is a component of the company’s programs in supporting the government in its disaster preparedness and mitigation efforts.

“The co-location of PAGASA rain gauges with our cell sites is just part of our plans to help improve the country’s weather forecasting and warning systems through the use of our technologies,” said Isberto. “Aside from the telemetric rain gauges, we are also studying the possibility of upscaling the Weather Monitoring and Disaster Alert System (WMDAS) which Smart developed with Ateneo de Davao. The system now operates in the Davao region and we intend to replicate the technology for use all over the country.”

Smart has also been spearheading Project Rain Gauge where students from different schools nationwide are trained to monitor and send rainfall data via manual rain gauges deployed by the telco.