Aboitiz weather stations to help reduce lightning hazards
Automated weather stations (AWS) owned and operated by Aboitiz social enterprise Weather Solutions, Inc. will play an important role in detecting and reducing lightning hazards, thanks to a recently-inked partnership with tech company Packetworx.
Under a memorandum of agreement signed recently, Packetworx, which is focused on enabling the Internet of Things in the Philippines, will provide Weather Solutions 37 lightning sensors, to be installed on Weather Solutions AWS in coming months. These sensors will detect the presence and approach of nearby potentially hazardous lightning activity and approximately measure the head of a storm. This will eventually improve Weather Solutions’ forecasting capabilities.
“With the partnership, Packetworx extends Weather Solutions’ weather sensing capabilities to a 15-kilometer radius from an AWS using cost-effective weather sensors. This enables Weather Solutions to provide even more granularity compared to its already-impressive localized weather information from over 800 AWS deployed across Philippines,” says Arnold Bagabaldo, Packetworx Founder and Chief Executive Officer.
Weather Solutions President Jojo Marasigan sees this partnership aiding in the improvement of services currently offered to stakeholders. “Through this engagement, we will be on the lookout for more opportunities to apply the IoT and integrate it with our weather data,” he noted.
Marasigan added that this is only the beginning of a partnership for improvement with Packetworx, as both teams look forward to creating solutions involving technologies such as air quality monitoring, soil fertility/moisture, and the use of water level sensors.
