EDITORIAL - Making sense of weather reports

Until supertyphoon Yolanda struck, Filipinos have not really been very particular about weather reports, which is strange because the Philippines is a tropical country situated right smack in the typhoon belt. It sits on the edge of the Western Pacific and forms the frontline for any storms that develop just to the east of it. After Yolanda, though, wariness about the weather has forced many Filipinos to make it a habit to keep tabs on Pagasa reports.

Those who have read western newspapers, especially those published in the US, will probably note with surprise and interest that whole sections of as many as four pages are devoted to the weather. We say surprise and interest because here in the Philippines weather reports published in the newspapers take up no more than two column inches of a page.

This is not to say we adopt the American fascination with the weather. They have their reasons, and we have our limitations. For one, the American economy relies in large part to how the weather cooperates in the production and movement of goods and in the provision of services. And their newspapers can very well afford to provide non-revenue earning services such as weather reports in exchange for readership and other tradeoffs.

This does not mean however that just because our economy is much smaller and our reports can ill afford the space and time for which they can be provided free that we can take these reports lightly. The weather is very important to people everywhere. As Yolanda, the strongest typhoon to hit land in recorded history and which crippled the Central Philippines in late 2013, has very tragically demonstrated, too little weather information and understanding can be devastating.

We do not have to adopt the American model in weather information and reporting. But at least the Philippines, and in particular its weather arm the Pagasa, ought to improve its weather services by providing more useful and relevant information than what it is currently providing. There should be more precise and specific forecasts instead of generalizations that result in making the weather nothing more than a guessing game.

One area that the Pagasa can make its reporting more relevant is to provide more information about sea conditions. Lest we forget, the Philippines is one vast archipelago. We are very dependent on maritime travel and maritime commerce to move people and goods across the islands. And yet, in weather reports, there is hardly anything about sea conditions. More emphasis is given on temperatures and sunrises and sunsets.

To be sure, there is a need to know temperatures. And because Pagasa is providing it, maybe there are indeed people who find some use in knowing when the sun would rise and when it would set. But for more practical purposes, we believe knowing sea conditions is so much more important than knowing the exact time of day when the sun rises or sets and whether it is going to be hot or not. If it's hot, people will know without being told. But we will not know if seas will be calm or rough.