Bagong 'PAGASA'

**Zeus** · October 24th, 2010 10:28 AM

Sa tagal ng panahon, tumama sa wakas muli sa forecast ang ating PAGASA noong isang linggo

Getting it right gives Pagasa new hope

By Tarra Quismundo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 04:15:00 10/24/2010

MANILA, Philippines— At exactly 10:30 p.m. last Sunday (October 17), eight weather and science officials went out on a limb: they bravely affixed their signature to a weather bulletin that placed Supertyphoon “Juan’s” landfall in Isabela, contrary to prevailing international forecasts.
Even as they remained fearful that the monster storm could suddenly change direction, the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) forecasters proved to be spot-on about Juan—a triumphant moment for an agency perennially criticized for faulty weather predictions.
“We had a Pagasa track which was different from all others. The CNN, BBC, Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan tracks were different. We had our own track that was dead on, so we were very happy,” said Science and Technology Secretary Mario Montejo.
“This time we did it differently and we are proud that we got it right. After one or two days, CNN was already using the Pagasa track,” Montejo said.
As predicted by the Pagasa weather forecasters, Juan slammed through Isabela with winds of 225 kilometers per hour, gusts of 260 kph in the 50-to-60 millimeter an hour range, similar to last year’s deadly Tropical Storm “Ondoy.”
“We took a shot at it with guts. We took a shot based on competence, following scientific and technical discipline, based on our findings on data, our schooling. That is what gave us the courage,” Montejo said.
It was quite a change from four months earlier, when Pagasa was blamed for failing to forecast that Tropical Storm “Basyang” would hit Metro Manila. Seen as a litmus test for the new Aquino administration’s disaster-response capabilities, the Basyang debacle in July led to the sacking of the then Pagasa administrator Prisco Nilo by an angry President Aquino.
A ‘new’ Pagasa
Obviously delighted at the agency’s having got the tracking of Juan right, Montejo now refers to the weather bureau as “ang bagong Pagasa” (a new Pagasa)—an agency very confident of its forecasting abilities and no longer heavily reliant on foreign weather agencies’ forecasts of what the weather in the country will be like.
“This is the new Pagasa. Now, our commitment is that 8 to 10 hours before landfall, we can already pinpoint where [the typhoon] will make a landfall. That’s the goal and we are confident of achieving [that] almost all the time,” Montejo said.
“Some would say why don’t we just copy [international] tracking? We are being realistic. Once a typhoon enters the Philippine area of responsibility, there is no other master than local [forecasters]. Before, the storm was already close and we still relied on others,” he said.
Critical decision
Recounting the critical hours before Juan was to make landfall, Montejo recalled how everyone at the Pagasa operations room was all nerves just before midnight last Sunday when the supertyphoon, the world’s strongest by far this year, suddenly moved downward from its stable northwest track.
At the time, international tracking had forecast Juan’s landfall in Cagayan by Monday, October 18. Montejo, Pagasa officer in charge Undersecretary Graciano Yumul Jr. and six forecasters were at the weather center, closely observing Juan’s progress.
“It was behaving well. It was almost boring, in that it was maintaining its track, except that it was a supertyphoon. Then, when it was maybe less than 300 km from landfall, it went down. All the meteorologists panicked,” Montejo said.
The typhoon moved even farther down, and now everyone in the room was worried.
“We all feared that if it continued at that angle, it might hit northern Metro Manila,” Montejo said.
After deliberating on the data, the group made the critical decision at 11 p.m., confident about the accuracy of their forecast even while international models read otherwise.
“We decided that it would go through Isabela, which is quite far from Cagayan, and that it would exit Ilocos Sur. We issued the bulletin at 11 p.m.,” said Montejo.
‘Exhilarating, exuberant’
Likening their act of signing on to a daring weather bulletin to the drawing up of a “blood compact,” Montejo noted that it was the first time that a science and technology secretary had signed a weather bulletin.
“I still can’t find the word for it ... exhilarating, or exuberant, I don’t know the word that would explain how we all felt,” he said.
Nathaniel Servando, Pagasa’s most senior weather forecaster, said the agency’s hourly updates helped make tracking more accurate this time.
Pagasa had also activated additional automated weather stations that sent local weather data to the weather bureau’s headquarters.
“We took a shot at a process that got it right. That’s why something like Basyang that hit out of nowhere will not happen again. It was not by chance. It was not a wild guess that proved right. It is repeatable,” he said.

Source: www.inquirer.net