Project Severe Weather Archive of the Philippines (SWAP). Part 1: Establishing a Baseline Climatology for Severe Weather across the Philippine Archipelago

TL;DR

This paper introduces the SWAP project, establishing a baseline climatology for severe weather in the Philippines through a new database, addressing data scarcity, and analyzing spatial-temporal patterns of severe weather events.

Contribution

It develops a collaborative data model for severe weather in the Philippines and provides initial climatological analysis of severe weather patterns in the region.

Findings

Identification of spatio-temporal patterns in severe weather occurrences

Highlighting data limitations and need for mesoscale environmental understanding

Establishment of a foundational severe weather database for the Philippines

Abstract

Because of the rudimentary reporting methods and general lack of documentation, the creation of a severe weather database within the Philippines has been difficult yet relevant target for climatology purposes and historical interest. Previous online severe weather documentation i.e. of tornadoes, waterspouts, and hail events, has also often been few, inconsistent, inactive, or is now completely decommissioned. Several countries or continents support severe weather information through either government-sponsored or independent organizations. For this work, Project SWAP stands as a collaborative exercise, with clear data attribution and open avenues for augmentation, and the creation of a common data model to store the phenomenon's information will assist in maintaining and updating the aforementioned online archive in the Philippines. This paper presents the methods necessary for creating the SWAP database, provide broader climatological analysis of spatio-temporal patterns in severe weather occurrence within the Philippine context, and outline potential use cases for the data. We also highlight the project's current limitations as is to any other existing and far larger database, and emphasize the need for understanding these events' and their mesoscale environments, inline to the current severe weather climatologies across the globe.