THE Project NOAH website or application software helped us save lives during the last habagat induced by Typhoon Maring. The beautiful thing about it is — anyone can access it and be empowered by the timely information it relays. Whether via a desktop, laptop, notebook, netbook, tablet, and smartphone … you have vital information at your fingertips.
But what happens next after you access the noah.dost.gov.ph website and download the Android or iOS app? It is really very easy. You just have to familiarize yourself with what “tools” will give you the information you need.
First is to enter the city or location in the Search box. With the next pulldown menu “Overview”, the most used is the MTSAT which shows you a satellite image of the weather disturbance affecting the country. Go ahead click on the others like Rainfall Contour, % Chance of Rain, and others. Explore these items.
The “Weather Outlook” pulldown menu gives you just that — the weather outlook, the rain forecast, etc. Icons will appear on the Philippine map and just zoom in on the location you are interested in and click on the sun or cloud or whatever icon hovers over that location.
The “Doppler” menu is very helpful in showing you if rainclouds are passing over the location. Ex. for Metro Manila, we click on the Subic and/or Tagaytay Station. The other stations are for areas in Visayas and Mindanao. The clouds on the screen are color-coded on what amount of rain are in those clouds. Please refer to the Color Scale on the sidebar.
The “Weather Stations” menu is the most-used. Personally, I always look up the Stream Gauge and the Rain Gauge. The Stream Gauge shows me the water level of Marikina River and Montalban River. For reference, Marikina LGU only uses the water level at the Sto. Nino Station so we have only one point of reference. I look at the water level of Montalban River because Dr. Mahar Lagmay, Executive Director or Project NOAH taught me that what happens in Montalban River mirrors what will happen downstream in Marikina River 2 hours after. So, if Montalban River rises or drops by a meter, you can expect that to happen also to Marikina River.
The next most-used is the Rain Gauge which helps us determine weather the water level will rise or recede some more. For Marikina, we look up the rain gauges in the Marikina Watershed area, namely the ones in Mt. Oro, Montalban (north); Mt. Aries, Antipolo (east); and Bosoboso, Antipolo (southeast). The rain that falls in these mountains will all flow down into the Marikina River.
The values shown are taken every 10 mins. so the proper way to read the amount of rainfall per hour is to add all 6 values contained in an hour (mm/hr).
The last menu is the “Flood Map” menu which contains historical flood maps, e.g. 5-100 year floodmaps, Ondoy Flood Map, etc. The most unique feature here are the Flood Inundation Maps of Marikina River, Pasig River and San Juan River. This is in real-time and will show you if water has overflowed the banks of the river and upto where.
I hope this helps you discover how Project Noah can help you, your family, and your community. Download and explore “Project NOAH” now!
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