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<img src="https://cdn.kahimyang.com/resources-17/padre-faura.webp" alt="Father Fedirico Faura" loading="lazy" />
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(Father Fedirico Faura, SJ better known as "Padre Faura")
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On November 18 of the same year, Padre Faura forecast (his second) that a strong typhoon would affect Manila. Vessels were ordered to remain in port and as a result the losses from the typhoon, which passed on the 20th, were relatively slight, whereas places without the benefit of the warning suffered severely. 


Typhoon warnings became a routine work of the Observatory.


People now realized that Faura's warnings were to be heeded. 


Then came a request came from Hong Kong for the publications of the Ateneo Observatory warnings/obervations. The Governor General, <a href="https://kahimyang.com/kauswagan/articles/1091/chronological-list-of-the-governors-of-the-philippines-1565-1899-and-the-administration-of-the-islands" class="news_link">Primo de Rivera</a>, created a committee to study the matter. The committee submitted a Proposal that a Meteorological Service be established, supported by the government, but entrusted for management to the Ateneo Observatory. This Proposal was endorsed by the Governor and sent to Madrid for approval. The usual delay took place, lasting three years. Then on April, 18, 1884, King Alfonso XII signed a Royal Decree creating a Meteorological Service in Manila to be managed by the Jesuit Observatory. A second Royal Decree named Father Faura the Director.



The Jesuits now felt obliged to provide better facilities for the Observatory than their roof in Intramuros. So, on a 6-hectare lot in Ermita where the Jesuits were building the Normal School, they added a wing, two towers and several other buildings for the Observatory instruments and offices. The Observatory transferred there in 1886 and remained there till the total destruction by Japanese and American action in 1945.

Father Faura organized the Ateneo Observatory (now renamed Observatorio de Manila) with four sections: Meteorology, Astronomy, Seismology, Terrestrial Magnetism. The Bureau of Telegraphs provided support by submitting regular reports from the provinces, which enabled the Observatory to map out the weather conditions and issue warnings.


Faura's biggest service to the country was twofold. First he was the first to understand clearly and decisively the nature and trajectories of typhoons. Other scholars in Asia were claiming that typhoons were born in the high mountains of Asia and moved eastward. Faura proved that typhoons were born in the South Pacific and moved northwestwards towards Asia, not from Asia.


His second big contribution: He identified the indicators of an approaching typhoon. He explained those in a treatise, and he invented the Faura barometer which helped to detect the indicators.


In September 17, 1888, after ten years of intensive work, his health broke down and left Manila for Spain leaving the directorship to Father Saderra Mata.


On July 28, 1893, Father Faura and Father Jose Algue left Spain to represent the Manila Observatory at the Meteorological Congress held in Chicago at the time of the Columbian Exposition. After the Congress they spent a short time in Buffalo, sailed from New York to Havana and left there December 10th, arrived in Barcelona on January 1, 1894, and immediately transhipped and started for Manila on January 5th, arriving in February 3, 1894 with Father Algue. Padre Faura again becomes Director, Algue becoming Sub-director of the Observatory. 


Father Faura spent the month of April, 1895, in Macao to escape the heat of Manila, and in the latter part of 1896 his health showed signs of breaking, the disturbed conditions of the time, because of the Philippine Revolution, contributing no small part to this failure. 


Despite his illness, he visited Jose Rizal in Fort Santiago the <a href="https://kahimyang.com/kauswagan/articles/1387/today-in-philippine-history-december-30-1896-dr-jose-rizal-was-shot-in-bagumbayan" class="news_link">day before Rizal's execution</a>. Three weeks later on January 23, 1897, Father Faura died.


Immediately after his death the city authorities named the street in front of the Observatory, "Padre Faura Street", in his honor. 


Father Jose Algue succeeded Padre Faura as Director of the Observatory.

July 7, 1879: Padre Faura issued the first ever Typhoon warning giving notice that a typhoon would cross northern Luzon