BALER, AURORA -- THE PHILIPPINE Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) has started the bidding process for the upgrade of radars and purchase of equipment to improve the weather bureau’s forecasting in the country.

Dr. Prisco Nilo, Pagasa director, said of the five radars laid out in the archipelago, the one in this town is due for conversion into a Doppler radar.

On top of processing electronic signals and relaying images that conventional radars do, a Doppler radar can also estimate wind speed and direction.

The bid price for the upgrade is P13 million, Nilo said.

The radar installed in Baguio City is also ready for upgrade, he said. Those in Aparri (Cagayan), Catanduanes and Guiuan (Eastern Samar) will be phased out and will be replaced by modern equipment, he added.

Nilo, who attended a disaster management workshop here on Tuesday, said the Japan International Cooperation Agency is starting bids for the equipment’s purchase in Japan in December. Pagasa targets to install at least one of these by 2009, he said.

Biddings are ongoing for the procurement of radars for the Subic and Tagaytay stations following President Macapagal-Arroyo’s order to release P150 million for those, he said.

Those sites can pick up signals for typhoons that come through the South China Sea, located in the country’s western border.

A radar would be installed in Cebu using an P80-million budget also ordered released by Ms Arroyo. Two more are eyed for Surigao del Sur and South Cotabato in Mindanao.

“All should be operational by 2010. There’s more hope in Pagasa, of course,” he said.

To those who have been doubting the agency’s weather forecasts, Nilo said: “What we do is scientific forecasting. The data are drawn through our equipment. We analyze the impact based on mathematical models. We give predictions on a 24-hour, 48-hour bases or more.”

“[The information we give is] not a prophecy. It will always be a forecast,” he said.

Pagasa, he said, gives updates every six hours.

“We target to give per hour to per three-hour updates. But we need to be automated to do that. It takes time to collect and transmit data. [The conventional radars] slow us down significantly,” Nilo said.

On top of the technology factor, weather also acts differently in the Philippines.

“What people don’t know much is that our country has an erratic weather system. In cold countries, their weather behave in a highly predictable way, having only cold and warm fronts,” he said.

In the Philippines, forecasters deal with the southwest (habagat) and northeast (amihan) monsoons. Tropical cyclones and thunderstorms come as well, he said.

“No matter what equipment we have, it is necessary [for people] to be constantly tracking the weather because the system is not well behaved,” Nilo said.