Is PAGASA, the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration, or the Philippine media to blame for the confusion about typhoons?
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| https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1030615/ph-readies-for-ompong-as-typhoon-nears |
International weather observers expect Mangkhut to reach a super typhoon category, while the local weather bureau says it won’t but said it would be a strong typhoon.
Not only does PAGASA reject the international name of all typhoons thus causing more than a little confusion with news reports but they also rejected the consensus of the international community that Ompong will become a super typhoon. A little later PAGASA revised their statement from "won't" to "low chance" of becoming a super typhoon.
Even much later the media and weather bureaus reported that Ompong reached super typhoon status.
Super Typhoon Mangkhut slammed into the Philippines in the early hours of Saturday, bringing ferocious gale-force winds and pounding rains, as aid agencies warned millions are at risk from rising flood waters and landslides.
Rappler reported just the opposite.
Though not considered a super typhoon, Typhoon Ompong (Mangkhut) claimed dozens of lives and left much damage in the northern part of the country.
So which is it? Was Ompong a super typhoon or just a regular typhoon? The confusion lies in the fact that the Philippines uses a different measuring system than the US based JTWC and that the media reports both the statements of PAGASA and the JTWC.
Now a new typhoon is barreling towards the Philippines and it's classification is also in dispute.
Ompong was earlier classified as a supertyphoon by the US Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC).
The JTWC classification is based on 1-minute instrumental readings. PAGASA has lower figures because it uses 10-minute readings similar to the standard used by the Japan Meteorological Agency.
https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/09/13/18/ompong-may-become-supertyphoon-before-smashing-cagayan-pagasaIf PAGASA is using a standard smilier to the Japan Meteorological Agency then would that not be considered an international standard? Why is only the US based JTWC considered as having an international standard or being an international observer?
Now a new typhoon is barreling towards the Philippines and it's classification is also in dispute.
Typhoon “Paeng” (International name “Trami”) has intensified into a super typhoon, the US-based Joint Typhoon Warning Center said Tuesday.
It is packing 259 kilometers per hour maximum sustained winds and gusts of up to 314 kph.
But the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration continued to categorize Paeng as a typhoon. JTWC measures the average wind strength per 1 minute, while Pagasa measures average winds every 10 minutes.
The typhoon is not expected to make landfall in the Philippines.
Thankfully this typhoon will not be making landfall in the Philippines which makes its category irrelevant. Actually typhoon categorisation is irrelevant to the Philippines because each typhoon inevitably causes much damage, destructive flooding, and many deaths because the Philippines is, for some odd reason, not typhoon ready.
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| https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/11/11/why-the-philippines-wasnt-ready-for-typhoon-haiyan |
Contrast the Philippines' experience with typhoons to Japan's, with earthquakes. For centuries, the country was nearly helpless against its regular quakes; more than 140,000 people were killed when one hit outside Tokyo in 1923. Today, the country is engineered practically from the ground up to withstand them. Large buildings are fortified with elaborate hydraulic systems; many homes are networked with alarms that sound in case of an offshore quake that could bring a tsunami. Civilians drill since early childhood on the proper response. When the 2011 quake hit, despite the damage, only 25 of the country's 170 emergency response hospitals were knocked offline even temporarily. Because people felt they could count on the government to come through, nearly all civilians complied with evacuation orders and hardly any looted. Within two days, for all their failings at responding to the Fukushima nuclear crisis, Japanese officials had successfully evacuated half a million people and deployed 100,000 troops, 190 planes, 45 boats, 120,000 blankets, and 110,000 liters of gasoline.
In many ways, the preparedness gap between Japan and the Philippines does, unfortunately, come down to money. Infrastructure is expensive; so are national preparedness programs and the sort of military that can mobilize so widely and so quickly. But the difference also gets to more elusive factors, about a government's power to not just deploy helicopters and clear roads but to earn its society's trust and, at the right moments, its compliance.
Why does the media report on the statements issued by the JTWC anyway? Why not just rely on reports from PAGASA? Not that it makes a whole lot of difference since the Philippines will get blasted either way but it would make reports a lot easier to comprehend and there would be less confusion as to the nature of the storm.
Another source of confusion is the name. The Philippines has its own typhoon naming system which differs from the international naming system. Just two week ago Typhoon Ompong pounded Northern Luzon. But just four years ago Typhoon Ompong was the strongest typhoon of the season to miss the Philippines.
Another source of confusion is the name. The Philippines has its own typhoon naming system which differs from the international naming system. Just two week ago Typhoon Ompong pounded Northern Luzon. But just four years ago Typhoon Ompong was the strongest typhoon of the season to miss the Philippines.
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| https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/643398/super-typhoon-ompong-strongest-this-year-to-spare-ph |
The name should have been retired in 2014 but it was not. Why?
The Joint Typhoon Warning Center in Honolulu started monitoring and naming storms in the Western Pacific region in 1945, originally using female names in English alphabetical order. That list was revised in 1979 by introducing male names to be used in alternation with the female names. The Philippine Weather Bureau started naming storms within their area of responsibility in 1963, using female Filipino names ending in ng in native alphabetical order. The Bureau continued to monitor typhoons until the agency's abolition in 1972, after which its duties were transferred to the newly-established PAGASA. This often resulted in a Western Pacific cyclone carrying two names: an international name and a local name generally used within the Philippines. This two-name scheme is still followed today.
Beginning in 2000, cyclone monitoring duties in the Western Pacific were transferred from the JTWC to the Japan Meteorological Agency, the RSMC of the World Meteorological Organization. The international naming scheme of the typhoons was replaced with a sequential list of names contributed by 14 nations in the region, including the Philippines. The new scheme largely uses terms for local features of the contributing nation, such as animals, plants, foods and adjectives in the native language. The rotation of names is based on the alphabetical order of the contributing nations. The Philippines, however, would maintain its own naming scheme for its local forecasts. In 2001, PAGASA revised its naming scheme to contain longer annual lists with a more mixed set of names.
Currently, the JMA and PAGASA each assign names to typhoons that form within or enter the Philippine Area of Responsibility. The JMA naming scheme for international use contains 140 names described above. The list is not restricted by year; the first name to be used in a typhoon season is the name after the last-named cyclone of the preceding season. The PAGASA naming scheme for Philippine use contains four lists, each containing twenty-five names arranged in alphabetical order. Every typhoon season begins with the first name in the assigned list, and the rolls of names are each reused every four years. An auxiliary list of ten names is used when the main list in a year had been exhausted. Not all Western Pacific cyclones are given names by both weather agencies, as JMA does not name tropical depressions, and PAGASA does not name cyclones outside the Philippine Area of Responsibility.
In the case of both weather agencies, names are retired when a typhoon carrying it caused severe or costly damage and loss of life. Retirement is decided by the agencies' committees, although in PAGASA's case, names are routinely retired when the cyclone caused at least 300 deaths or ₱1 billion in damage in the Philippines. Retired names are replaced with another name for the next rotation, for JMA by the nation that submitted the retired name, and for PAGASA with a name sharing the same first letter as the retired name.
Why is PAGASA so bent on assigning their own names to typhoons? The JTWC started naming typhoons first in 1945 and then the bureau which eventually became PAGASA started naming typhoons in the PAR in 1963! And why is there a disparate measuring system between PAGASA and the JTWC? Shouldn't typhoons be classified and categorised according to an international standard? Imagine if each nation had its own Richter scale.
The name Ompong was not retired in 2014 because it did not cause enough, it actually did not not cause any, destruction. Only about 80 people have died from Ompong this year which means the name will likely be kept in use and the next time it is used will only cause confusion again especially when the agencies are tracking the history of typhoons in the Philippines.
The Philippines would be better served if PAGASA adopted and maintained international standards or if the media did not issue reports with both international and local information.
The Philippines would be better served if PAGASA adopted and maintained international standards or if the media did not issue reports with both international and local information.
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