EDITORIAL - Make weather reports a part of your day

According to weather experts, the rains that fell last Monday were more than the average rainfall in Cebu for the month of September. And it was due to a low pressure area that swept across the Visayas. These have to be taken into account because there is no way the resulting floods, which crippled the lives of many, can be politicized, as many are often prone to do once inconvenienced in a similar way.

What we saw on Monday was Mother Nature at work. It was not the result of bureaucratic inefficiency or public carelessness. Even the most attentive government and the most conscientious public will never be a match against Mother Nature when it is at its worst. And it is difficult to believe the rains last Monday were not some of the worst Cebu has seen.

If it is any consolation, there were government agencies that worked really hard to mitigate the impact of the deluge. The Pagasa, for example, was spot on in its forecasts. Unfortunately for Pagasa's vigilance, people still need a lot of prodding to make checking weather conditions a part of their daily routines. Weather has not seemed to have reached that certain level of importance to many people to have that compelling impact on their daily lives.

And that is the irony because weather is among what should be foremost in our daily routines, especially in these times of climate change. There may have been a low pressure area that affected Cebu but it was still climate change that caused the amount of rain to fall the way it did. We are no stranger to weather concerns, from low pressure areas to supertyphoons. But Monday's rains were really something and you only have climate change to blame for them.

Aside from the Pagasa, with its vastly improved forecasts, the public also got periodic text messages from the National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council but the timing of such text messages need to vastly improve. For while the messages were clear and to the point, their timing was greatly off. For example, warnings of weather conditions for 2 p.m. were received way too late - at 5 p.m. Still the gesture was heartening.

This serves as an appeal then to the public, to make checking weather reports a real part of the day's first activities. Weather reports are very helpful in guiding the public in the course of their daily activities. They ultimately mean less inconvenience, help cut costs and losses, and more importantly save lives. Those weather reports are our guideposts as we go through our daily lives.