PASAY CITY, Manila November 11 (PIA)—A doppler radar which would be put in southeastern Bohol would immensely bolster the weather bureau’s forecasting capacity especially in accurately tracking storms entering Mindanao sea.

Bohol officer in charge of the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAG-ASA) Leonardo Samar said the Department of Science and Technology is now ironing out the details of the proposal to erect Bohol’s first and possibly only Doppler radar in Basac, Alburquerque.

A Doppler radar is a specialized radar that uses the bouncing targeted microwave signals to a desired target and computing or analyzing how the object’s motion has altered the frequency of the returned signal. This variation gives direct and highly accurate measurements of the radial component of a target’s velocity relative to the radar.

The soon to stand Bohol Doppler radar forms a redundant system that peeps through the interlacing circles of coverage which practically leave no areas in the eastern Philippines blind from approaching weather disturbances which spawn at the Pacific.

Comprised of 6 operational radars now, each one covering some overlapping 400 kilometers, these radars, all located in vantage and strategic points across the country are in Baguio, Subic, Tagaytay, Mactan, Hinatuan and Tampakan.

Typhoon Yolanda has effectively opened a blind spot in the country’s weather vigilance with the Tacloban radar ruined.

With an area remaining the country’s blind spot, a radar set-up in Bohol effectively covers that empty area as well as lend an eye to weather forecasters as soon as a storm passes over Surigao and descends into the Mindanao sea, which the Tampakan and Hinatu-an radars can’t see owing to the tall Mindanao mountains.

Recalling what happened to Seniang, while the PAG-ASA predicted good on the typhoon path after it entered the Philippine area of responsibility, the radars could not accurately pinpoint the storms location as it descends into Mindanao sea, Leonardo Samar of the PAG-ASA Dauis said.

While it becomes a redundant system, the Alburquerque Bohol Doppler, which is now opening its bids could be completed next year, the weatherwatcher said.

This system could enhance weather monitoring in the Visayas, Samar stressed. (rac/PIA-7/Bohol)