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MonsoonMaiden

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Blog Entries posted by MonsoonMaiden

  1. MonsoonMaiden
    In early 1998, we heard that a team of mountaineers from Singapore was planning to try climbing Mt Everest. They were hoping MSS could provide them with weather data, & I remember two of the team (I think Khoo Swee Chiow & Johann Annuar) coming to our office to have a look at what was available. Unlike the days of Edmund Hillary, things are so high-tech now that we were able to email the data to them every day.
    Since that first expedition, there have been many others, but at the time it was a novelty especially as Singapore is a tropical island & does not have an alpine environment. Public interest in mountain climbing was limited to nearby Mt Kinabalu & Mt Ophir, & although a lot of Singaporeans do go trekking in Nepal, something like a full-scale climb of a mountain like Everest was unheard of.
    The media gave the team quite a lot of coverage, & at that time the Singapore Omnitheatre also decided to feature the film "EVEREST - The Movie". It was interesting discovering how gruelling the climb can be. I also approved of the respect our climbers showed for the mountain - when the press kept harping about how we were going to "conquer Everest", one of the team finally said, "We do not conquer Chomalungma (as the Tibetans call the mountain). Chomalungma, if she is willing, allows us to climb her."

    Edwin Siew & Khoo Swee Chiow at the summit
    Since we were providing them with weather data, I was more than a little interested in the team's progress, & was glad when two of the climbers, Edwin Siew and Khoo Swee Chiow, made it to the summit on 27 May 1998. I think a lot of people didn't really believe they would make it. There was, however, quite a furore when it was discovered that the two who planted the Singapore flag on the summit were Malaysians (Singapore permanent residents). David Lim, the team leader, has given answers to this and other objections. (Incidentally, both Edwin Siew & Khoo Swee Chiow have since taken up Singapore citizenship).
    After their success, the team was grateful to those who had supported & believed in their cause, & posed with various sponsors' banners for photos. They asked MSS if we had a banner (we had sent them the data free of charge) but it hadn't occurred to us to have one made. When I later contacted Johann Annuar to ask for a few photos for our Annual Report, he was most helpful.
    Johann was an undergrad at NUS at the time & I met up with him at his hostel (Eusoff Hall) to look through the photos. I asked him for an account of the weather conditions there, & came up with this report :
    "One of the major obstacles to the expedition’s success was the harsh weather conditions the team would experience. The timing of the expedition was scheduled with this in mind, taking place from early March (the end of winter) to late May (late spring) when conditions are mildest. At over 8000 metres above sea-level – almost the cruising level of most commercial aircraft – air is extremely thin; team members risked the danger of mountain sickness, and had to spend several weeks acclimatizing as they ascended from Camp 4 to Base Camp. With only a thin layer of atmosphere as a shield against radiation from space, sunlight, and in particular ultraviolet radiation, was very intense, so much so that temperatures during the daytime at Base Camp tended to become quite hot; a thermometer in one of the tents was known to have recorded more than 40oC at one time. During the nights, temperatures inside the tents would plummet to –20o C, while outside the tents, with windchill and other factors, it reached as low as –40oC.

    Khoo Swee Chiow showing two extremes of temperature
    Base Camp was mostly sheltered from the more severe forms of weather, being surrounded on three sides by mountains at the end of a valley. The weather there followed a diurnal cycle, with mornings starting off fair and temperatures becoming quite warm in the afternoons. At around 4pm, conditions would normally deteriorate as katabatic winds would start to blow down from the higher peaks, bringing extensive snow with them.

    Strong winds blow snow off the summit
    The team suffered a setback on 1 April when a violent windstorm swept down upon the camp around 2am, sending team members scrambling for cover as tent poles snapped and tents collapsed. Nearly all the Singapore team’s tents were destroyed. Team members estimated the winds ranged between 120-150 km/hr, while the sherpas present claimed that winds of such force are usually only encountered at much higher altitudes. The incident set the expedition back for about a week as new tents and equipment had to be obtained.

    Aftermath of the windstorm
    A bad spate of weather also occurred during the second week of May, when heavy snowfall reduced visibility to 200 metres and winds of up to 180 km/hr were whipping the mountain. The weather was so severe that the team built a helicopter landing pad near Base Camp in case they needed to be evacuated at short notice.

    Another threat to the expedition came from farther afield in the form of Tropical Cyclone “01B” which formed in the Bay of Bengal on 18 May. Its presence caused the Singapore team some anxiety as after making landfall, the remnants of the cyclone could easily track over to the Himalayas and cause heavy snowfall over the Everest region. This might have been so had the storm tracked north-northwest; fortunately, it chose to follow a more northeasterly track, making landfall near Chitaggong, Bangladesh, before dissipating on 20 May with minimal effect on the expedition."
  2. MonsoonMaiden
    "Sun Sad" by Mike Muk
    The smoke haze is back in Singapore. It made front page news in the local newspapers & was reported in Channel News Asia as well. Quite a number of people also sent hazy photos to the Stomp website. The National Environment Agency (of which Met Services Division is a part) has also posted a haze update on its website.

    For the haze to be such a newsworthy item actually speaks well for our usual air quality - in some large cities, smog prevails every day & such atmospheric conditions are the norm, & would not cause even the slightest of hiccups in the local news.
  3. MonsoonMaiden

    Von Karman Vortices

    By MonsoonMaiden,

    A Von Karman vortex street caused by the airflow over the island of Jan Mayen in the Greenland Sea :

    Such vortices can be seen in many other places; these trails off Alaska's Aleutian Islands are even more spectacular :

    I must confess I have a soft spot for the Jan Mayen vortices, though, because Jan Mayen was where I first heard of the phenomenon ... the book Spacious Skies had several photos of them. I find them amazing - never realised such regular & intricate cloud patterns existed. :lol:
    Spacious Skies began that section by saying, "Jan Mayen is one of the most interesting islands in the world ..." It is a little-known Norwegian-administered island, 600 km north of Iceland, hosting the northernmost active volcano (Beerenburg) on earth, & covered with a great glacier. It is uninhabited except for a rotating crew of 18 people, manning the LORAN and meteorological stations (Info taken from this site).
    Some other Von Karman vortex links :
    About Von Karman vortex streets
    Von Karman vortices in other locations
    SPACE.com article
  4. MonsoonMaiden

    Holiday In Wales

    By MonsoonMaiden,

    After the Hurricane Workshop in Miami, I met D at Heathrow & we rented a car & drove straight to Wales. It might have been more logical to stay on in the U.S. & have a holiday there, but I wasn't so familiar with getting around the U.S. & driving on the right side of the road; I'd lived a year in the UK & I wanted a holiday where I could really relax. I chose Wales because I'd already been around Scotland & England.
    Some of the places we visited were Tenby, Aberystwyth, Landudno & Lake Vyrnwy. We drove through Pembrokeshire & Snowdonia National Park. Initially I thought of stopping at Carmartheon, which I think is where Merlin is supposed to have been born, but we didn't in the end.

    I liked Aberystwyth where we stayed at a B&B right next to the seafront. We had an attic room all panelled with wood which made it look cosy, & if it hadn't been raining so much, we would have had a good view of sea. As it was, the weather was pretty bad & the waves were strong & we could hear them crashing down on the shore the entire time we were there. I spent the whole night just listening to them. It made me think of my childhood, when my family used to rent a chalet by sea - I used to listen to the waves on the shore at night, & it's a sound that I think I'll never get tired of.
    We had look at the castle there & also the museum. D got bored in the museum & went outside to wait but I rather liked it. It looked old & a bit run-down, but there was a section on geology which was quite nice, & also some old furniture & ceramics to look at. Another interesting article on display was a set of love spoons, carved by some sailor. I actually copied down the information given :
    The centuries old Welsh custom of giving love spoons meant that a would-be suitor gave a spoon as an indication that he desired to court a particular girl. A girl may therefore have received several spoons from as many suitors. The oldest surviving spoon, made in 1667, is in the Welsh Folk Museum at St Fagan's Castle, Cardiff, although it is known that love spoons were made well before this date by the menfolk of Wales. Love spoons are symbolic, and have several meanings.

    To begin with, they suggest that a suitor can help the one he loves - to food - for which they were originally designed. Later, they became quite ornamental, with long handles and the means by which to hang them on a wall. The designs on the spoon are also symbolic. For instance, a heart means, "my heart is yours". Spoons with cages in which run spheres indicate the number of children the suitor would like to have. Double spoons denote togetherness. A key indicates the key to one's heart.
    I thought it rather nice because it's an old tradition & because of the symbolism. I saw quite a number of love spoons in the souvenir shops later, but they were expensive, 6 pounds just for a teaspoon-sized one, 12 pounds for a larger. In the end I bought one for my parents, since their wedding anniversary was just around the corner.
    At Tenby, I wanted to visit Caldey Island because there is a monastery there, but unfortunately it wasn't the season for visiting. We attended mass at the Church of the Holyrood & St Teilo. I noticed one curious thing about the stained glass - all the windows were plain except for one with what looked like a Great Tit on it. To this day I'm still wondering why - was there some story behind it, or did the stained glass supplier just do it for a joke? I regret not asking the priest there about it.

    Another nice place we stayed at was a B&B which had a view of Cader Idris. I'd heard about this mountain from Susan Cooper's The Grey King - it is supposed to mean "The Seat of Arthur". Our room had a good view (whatever could be seen through the rain) of the mountain, plus Lake Tal-y-Llyn, and sheep grazing in a pasture. The low clouds made the mountain look rather forbidding, which in a way was more interesting than if it had been a fair day. The landlady there told us she'd lived in Singapore four years before the British moved out. This was the second person to tell us such a thing - in Tenby, the landlord told us that he'd lived in Seletar before.
    We also took a detour to visit a reservoir called Nant-y-moch. This was really isolated and the road was extremely narrow. Being from Singapore, it was quite an experience to be in the middle of nowhere with not a soul for miles except for sheep. When we got to the reservoir, the wind was really strong. There was a small monument to Owain Glyndwr (a Welsh hero) there. I wanted to get out of the car to read the inscription, but the wind almost blew me away when I opened the door.

    We also visited Lake Vyrnwy, which was lovely because it really seemed unspoiled. There were very few buildings there - one hotel, one farm, & some small shops, including an RSPB store. The weather had cleared by this time & when we arrived in the evening, the sunset over the lake made a good picture. The B&B, not surprisingly, was already taken, so there was no place to stay except the hotel which was pretty expensive. There were some bird-viewing huts scattered along the lake, & the following morning we spent a few hours sitting inside one of them, watching the birds. I could only recognise the common ones, like the tits. A squirrel also came along to check out the food, and there were some robins. I have a fondness for robins. :lol:

    We also stopped at a craft shop along the way, & the first thing I saw when I entered the door was a stone carving of a little mole sitting on the floor, laughing up at me. He was just so incredibly cute. I was a bit doubtful about buying him, though, because he was heavy, but D chivalrously volunteered to carry him in his hand luggage aboard the plane. In the end I also bought another smaller mole, reclining on its side.
    Wales was cold & it rained half the time we were there. Later, when I'd mentioned this to a friend who works in the UKMO, he joked that I'd chosen a good time to visit - April 2000 had been a record-breaking month for rainfall in many areas, almost three times the national average.
  5. MonsoonMaiden

    Chinese Solar Terms

    By MonsoonMaiden,

    Noticed this in Craig's post under the South China Heatwave thread. Yep, good names. :lol:
    Spring Begins Feb 4
    Rain Water Feb 19
    Awakening of Insects Mar 6
    Spring Equinox Mar 21
    Clear and Bright Apr 5
    Grain Rains Apr 20
    Summer Begins May 6
    Grain Fills May 21
    Grain in Ear Jun 6
    Summer Solstice Jun 21
    Slight Heat Jul 7
    Great Heat Jul 23
    Autumn Begins Aug 8
    End of Heat Aug 23
    White Dew Sep 8
    Autumn Equinox Sep 23
    Cold Dew Oct 8
    Hoar Frost Oct 23
    Winter Begins Nov 7
    Little Snow Nov 22
    Great Snow Dec 7
    Winter Solstice Dec 22
    Little Cold Jan 6
    Great Cold Jan 20
    More info can be found in Wikipedia.
  6. MonsoonMaiden

    Met. Office Mooncakes

    By MonsoonMaiden,

    Our newest colleague made these mooncakes. :lol: He seems to have missed his vocation - they look really professional. Well, maybe he'll set up his own bakery one day. :lol:
    The Chinese words are "zhong qiu yue bing, hua hao yue yuan" which translates as "Midautumn mooncakes, beautiful flowers & full moon (also signifying conjugal bliss)".
    Read about the Midautumn festival here. :o
  7. MonsoonMaiden
    When Pat & I started work, colleagues would sometimes joke that we should double up as TV weather girls for MSS. Fortunately, MSS tried this out sometime before we joined & scrapped the idea because none of the forecasters was telegenic enough. Personally I would find it quite horrid to have to appear on TV. :lol: Some years later we really did have some weather girls, the first of which was Charlene, sister of one of our local actors Adrian Pang.

    Presenting weather on TV isn't as straightforward as it might seem. For one thing, there is actually nothing behind you but a green screen. There was a PS21 Exhibition at Suntec City that year (its lengthy aim was : to showcase the govt's vision in attaining a 1st-class civil service for the 21st Century), & MSS had a booth with a large green stage where members of the public were allowed to try giving a TV weather presentation. Our boss reminded those of us manning the booth not to wear anything green unless we wanted a disembodied appearance on screen. It was quite a success - I remember one guy who actually went off to buy a green T-shirt & came back wearing it just for the fun of seeing how he'd look with it on TV. :lol: Charlene was there as well, & got to show our then Prime Minister, Mr Goh Chok Tong, the ropes.

    Unfortunately the TV weather presentation was scrapped from the evening news after a while, because it got to be very monotonous. Singapore's daily temperature range doesn't vary much from day to day (around 24 to 32 deg Celsius) & it is possible to get rain every day. There aren't any distinct weather features like frontal systems either; nor is the general public very interested in weather. Also, none of the weather girls lasted very long, partly because none of them were meteorologists (as I think weather presenters in other countries are) - they were using it as a stepping stone to bigger things. We had a whole string of them; one went on to star in some other local TV dramas. There was one who wasn't very good-looking & one of my aunts used to be rather unkind about her. "Who's that girl on TV?! Terrible, her face looks like a horse!!!"

    Charlene & Mr Goh
    Our best presenter was Charlene. It took her a while to get the hang of presenting, but once she did she was very good. My supervisor once remarked that "Charlene's now pointing all over the place on the screen". She left after a while, & the last I heard she'd taken up a career in singing with her own band.
  8. MonsoonMaiden
    Tropical Storm "Greg" (43W) was an unusual weather system in that tropical cyclones (TCs) seldom occur at latitudes low enough to affect Malaysia. The country is divided into West Malaysia (Peninsular Malaysia) and East Malaysia (consisting of the states of Sabah & Sarawak).

    GMS IR image at 240400Z. 2 hours later, the JTWC upgraded the cloud cluster to Tropical Depression status
    "Greg" was first observed as a cloud cluster that developed on the night of 20 Dec 1996, over the South China Sea to the northeast of East Malaysia. Cloud clusters are a common feature in this area during the Northeast Monsoon, but this one proved to be unusually long-lived, with convective development enhanced by low-level convergence between westerly winds and northeasterly monsoonal flow. On 240600Z the Joint Typhoon Warning Centre (JTWC) assigned it tropical depression status. Winds to the north of the system continued to be enhanced by the northeasterly monsoon, so that by 250000Z tropical storm intensity had been reached. The storm's movement was unusual : it began tracking east-southeast toward the East Malaysian coast.

    "Greg" affecting Sabah on Christmas night.
    “Greg” moved into Sabah at around 251600Z (Christmas night), depositing heavy rains that triggered floods and caused rivers to overflow their banks. Powerlines were downed, water supplies disrupted and road and communication links washed out. The storm affected a total of 17000 people from 226 villages along Sabah’s west coast. At least 163 people died, most of them migrant workers. The sad thing about these workers is that many had entered the country illegally from Indonesia & were never accounted for. Another 3000 were left homeless.

    Post-analysis from JTWC 1996 Pacific Typhoon Season Summary :
    Greg's east-southeastward motion was very unusual. TCs which form within (or move into) the South China Sea late in the year are often blocked from moving west by well-established northeasterly monsoon flow. Such TCs often remain quasi-stationary or move southwestward and dissipate.

    242330Z Dec GMS imagery showing five tropical cyclones : Greg (G), Fern (FN),
    Ophelia (OP), Phil (P) and Fergus (FG) lying within twin monsoon troughs
    Greg formed in the South China Sea when an unusual large-scale wind pattern dominated the region : During the second half of Dec 1996, twin low-latitude monsoon troughs became established between approx 100 deg E and 170 deg E, one trough north and the other south of the equator, and a belt of low-level westerly winds existed in equatorial latitudes between them. A total of five tropical cyclones - two in the northern hemisphere and three in the southern hemisphere - were formed within these monsoon troughs.
    It is hypothesized that the strong westerly winds to the south of Greg provided the flow asymmetry responsible for its eastward motion. This factor plus the existence of the large circulation of Fern (42W) to Greg's northeast were cited as possible sources of the east-southeast movement of Greg.
  9. MonsoonMaiden

    Holy Smokes!

    By MonsoonMaiden,

    The smoke haze in southern Kalimantan is looking bad. The people there must be almost suffocating.
    If winds in the area remain easterly/southeasterly, it's going to drift over to Singapore ... :lol:
  10. MonsoonMaiden

    Weather Calendars

    By MonsoonMaiden,

    This is one of my favourite photos, of a cap cloud over Ball's Pyramid, New South Wales :

    It would be interesting to know what atmospheric conditions had been present that day, & whether this is a common phenomenon. As I mentioned before, I like cap clouds a lot and this must be the Mother of all Cap Clouds.
    The other photo I really like is this one of a cumulonimbus, over Point Lookout, also in New South Wales :

    I've seen a lot of cb clouds since then, but somehow nothing can beat this one. It looks quite unique. In fact I once showed it to a group of air traffic control students and they couldn't even recognise it as a cloud. One student asked if it was real or a painting.
    The photos are from the 1994 Australian Weather Calendar which a friend of my mother's is kind enough to send me every year. I've had these on my locker for over 10 years & they've become quite faded. Even so, I haven't found any others I like enough to replace them with, despite the fact that subsequent calendars have had some pretty spectacular photos.
    Click here to check some of them out : 2004 2005 2006
    and have a look at some other weather calendars as well.
  11. MonsoonMaiden

    Random Snippets

    By MonsoonMaiden,

    THE ASMC
    A few days after I started work, I discovered that MSS was hosting a research centre called the ASMC (ASEAN Specialised Meteorological Centre). At that time there were three scientists attached there, Dr Rosa Perez from PAGASA (the Philippines' Met. Office) and Tukul Rameyo Adi & Suratno from BMG, Indonesia. Adi and Suratno were not exactly meteorologists but doing some technical work for BMG. Adi once showed me his wedding photo & I couldn't help laughing because although he looked very nice in his Javanese costume, he had this glassy-eyed expression of disbelief on his face.
    When Rosa's stint ended, she said before leaving, "We shall meet again. Meteorology is a small world." This turned out to be true, because I met her some years later in Manila (she seemed to have forgotten me by then, though! :lol: ) Adi also reappeared in our office a couple of years later when he returned for a training workshop. It was nice seeing him again, with his sheepish grin.
    The next two ASMC scientists I met were also from PAGASA : Jun & Bubut. I was quite puzzled by their names at first, until I discovered that Jun's real name was Landrico Dalida Jr and that "Jun" was short for "Junior". Bubut (pronounced Boo-Boot) kept insisting her real name was Bubut until someone else told me it was Fredolina Baldonando.
    There have been several other ASMC scientists, including a pretty woman meteorologist from Vietnam, but I didn't get to see them much as they seldom came over to the Operations office.
    EDMUND
    On my first day at work, the Deputy Director noticed that the desk I was using in the library was dusty, so he went off & reappeared with an elderly technician by the name of Edmund, & told him to clean the desk. I felt pretty embarrassed; it's not as if I can't clean my own desk. Anyway I got to chatting with Edmund; he was a wily & intelligent character, & since I was stuck alone in the library for those first few months (while waiting to go to Reading), he was more or less the first friend I had in MSS.
    He said his official title was Port Met. Officer, but that this was just a glorified term for the technician who visits the ships that carry our met. equipment. (There are a number of ships that have agreed to carry our met. equipment & collect weather data, & it was Edmund's job to visit them when they came to port in order to collect the data sheets & replace equipment parts when necessary). Edmund would pop by the library sometimes & feed me various bits of gossip about the office; & although there were a lot of things about MSS that he didn't seem happy with, still I noticed he took a lot of pride in doing his job well. Besides collecting ship data, it was also his duty to look through the newspapers every day & cut out all articles related to weather & file them away. He was so meticulous about this that he looked through everything, even the sports section, & if there was even one line mentioning weather (eg that it drizzled during a football match) he would cut the entire article out.
    It was Edmund who arranged that Pat & I visit the Changi observing station & also our Upper Air Laboratory at Paya Lebar where the balloon carrying the radiosonde was released. He also arranged for me to accompany him during one of his ship visits. It was interesting - once you enter the container terminal, it's like entering a different world. There are none of the usual road markings & it seemed to me that the vehicles there were simply driving wherever they wanted. The vehicles were enormous (they had to be, in order to transport the containers) & I was quite terrified that one of these monsters would collide with us & crush Edmund's car to a pulp. (I could just imagine the car crumpling up like a piece of paper). The ship seemed enormous too & it was scary climbing the rope ladder up & the climb seemed to take forever. Edmund, in his usual glib manner, informed me that the sailors on board probably hadn't seen a woman for weeks & would be leering at me. However, everyone was very polite while we were there & we collected the data & left without me noticing any leering.
    The only time I was ever unhappy with Edmund was when he made me sell T-shirts for him to raise funds for his church & didn't bother to sell any himself. I was quite indignant when I found out I was doing all the work for him! Other than that he has been a good friend & I always enjoyed getting updates from him about his wife & kids & listening to all his stories. I think he could have done better than work at MSS. He said if he were younger & had the capital he'd like to open a restaurant. He speaks well & auditioned to be a DJ once. He seemed interested in everything & once amused me by telling me he reads everything, even the labels on cans. I sometimes think I could take a leaf out of his book. :lol:
    SCIENCE CENTRE BOOKLETS

    The Singapore Science Centre has published a series of little guide books which I like a lot, on nearly every aspect of Singapore's flora and fauna - wayside trees, birds, sealife, & flowers, to name a few. Some years ago they wanted to have one on the weather of Singapore as well, & asked MSS to help write it. Unfortunately, the project fell through due to lack of funding. I really felt it was a pity, it would be nice if we could have our own weather pocket guide book at last.
  13. MonsoonMaiden
    Asian Aerospace is an international trade fair for the aerospace business. It was based at the Changi Exhibition Centre near Changi Airport for a number of years, and is the biggest airshow event in Asia. A Liaison Officer (L.O.) is usually attached to each of the high-ranking foreign delegates coming to attend the Exhibition. The L.O.'s job is basically to receive the delegate when he arrives at the airport, facilitate and ensure his attendance at the various meetings, & send him off when he leaves.
    A number of the participants were also bringing their wives with them, however. The wives were not here to attend the Exhibition, but to shop. Even so, as a token of courtesy, CAAS (the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore) also wanted to appoint L.O.s to each of the wives, & since there was a lack of manpower they contacted the various departments around the airport & asked them to nominate some of their staff to help out. Met. Service decided to send Pat and me.
    We had a briefing where we were each given a handout on what an L.O.'s duties are, how to address the Minister (Your Excellency) & deport ourselves (Dress smartly, etc.). That last section included a line that said, "If you have body odour kindly use a deodorant." Several people sniggered when they saw this.
    I was to be L.O. to Mrs Agum Gumelar, the wife of the Indonesian Minister for Communications. Pat was to be L.O. to the wife of the Thai Minister. We were to get their passports from the Minister's aides & bring them to immigration, & bring the wives around to the shops while their husbands attended the Aerospace Exhibition (& probably carry their shopping bags as well, in other words, be slave for a day). Someone asked how we were to recognise the Minister when he came off the plane, & the CAAS chap briefing us chortled & said, "He'll be the one all the rest are bowing & scraping to."
    When the fateful day came, I went to the airport VIP lounge for the first time, and found that the Indonesian Embassy staff were also there. When the Minister appeared, I didn't notice a lot of scraping but there was some bowing (from the Embassy staff) and rapid exchange in Bahasa Indonesia. Mrs Agum Gumelar was a pretty & gentle lady; when she stepped off the plane & saw me, she shook my hand and said gravely, "Ni hao" ("How are you" in Chinese).
    In the end I didn't have much to do because the Embassy staff took over & did everything. The same happened with Pat - the Thai Embassy staff came in & took over. However, Eng Chin, the girl who was L.O. to the Thai Minister, asked Pat to give her some moral support during the Opening Ceremony (which was to be held at Suntec City, although the Exhibition itself was at Changi), so I decided to tag along for fun.
    Eng Chin had to go to the hotel (Westin Stamford) first, see the Minister to his car, then jump into the limo provided & rush to Suntec City, reaching there before the Minister arrived so that she could receive him. Then she was to hand the tickets to the Minister's aides so that he could enter the auditorium.
    I met her & Pat at Westin; I was amazed when I entered the hotel lobby - it was full of naval, air force & military officers from every country, all resplendent in their uniforms, many highly decorated, some in red, others white, navy blue or green. They looked very impressive, & all of them seemed extremely tall. I would have liked to have stayed & admired them for a bit, but we had to rush up to the Thai Minister's hotel room.
    When we got there, we discovered that the Minister had already left. We dashed down again, through the lobby where all the officers were milling around, & out to the limousine where our young Malay driver was waiting. Eng Chin panted, "Sazali, drive as fast as you can to Suntec!" There was a terrific jam, however. Not surprising since most of the delegates were staying at the same hotel & all of them were going to the Opening Ceremony at the same time. It was quite a sight, seeing the entire road crammed with limousines.
    By the time we reached Suntec, the Minister had vanished. Eng Chin kept trying to call one of his aides on her mobile. We were running around, first up to the auditorium, then down again. Then we tried to take the lift up again but found that all the lifts had now been frozen because the Prime Minister had arrived. We ran to the escalators, but they too had been frozen, so we had to run up all six floors.
    When we reached the top it appeared that the Thai Minister had already gone into the auditorium despite not having a ticket. Eng Chin still wanted to pass the tickets to the aide, so we went into the VIP area to look for him. We had to pass through the banquet hall first, & I was busy observing how grand everything looked - the food was all ready & waiting, trays & trays of hors d'oeuvres, stretching (so it seemed) to the horizon, barbecued meats kept warm & sizzling, a mountain of fruit, a vast array of empty champagne glasses ... we rushed through into the VIP room. I have never seen so many of our cabinet ministers together in such close proximity before (I noticed in particular Tony Tan, because of his white hair).
    Anyway the Thai aide wasn't there either, so we went out again. Eng Chin was trying to call him. There was a crowd milling around outside the auditorium, & I was idly watching a man with a crewcut walking around in circles, talking on his mobile. Eng Chin was talking into her mobile. "Where are you?" Pause. "I'm out here, outside the auditorium." Pause. "You're where?" She kept peering into the crowd. "I'm outside, I'm standing next to the railing." Then her eyes suddenly fell on the crewcut guy a few feet away. "Oh hang on, you're right in front of me."
    Since the Embassy staff had taken over everything, there was nothing for me & Pat to do until the last day when we were to see the Ministers off at the airport. I did take advantage of the fact that I had an entry pass to the Exhibition grounds, & brought a friend in with me so that we could watch the aerial displays. I enjoyed it but I wish I knew more about fighter jets; we couldn't recognise most of the aircraft we were looking at (I tried eavesdropping on two guys who were standing near us, hoping for a commentary, but without success).
    Actually, since I stay near the airport I can usually watch some of the aircraft practising their displays whenever Asian Aerospace comes around. There was even one year when the Stealth came to Singapore. I never got to see that, but our technicians at the observing station next to the Changi runway did. They said it looked like a huge bat. I did get to see another bomber from my home window & it really looked menacing. I never knew bombers were so large.
    On the final day, I got to chat a little with Mrs Agum Gumelar. From her passport I had seen that her name was Linda Amaliasari, and one of the Embassy staff had whispered to me that she was the daughter of the Communications Minister during the Suharto era. Despite that, she was a pleasant lady & had no airs. I was rather shocked when she told me she was 53 yrs old; she really looked youthful, & except for a thickening of her body, her face looked no more than 30, girlish even. She said she had just visited a friend here in Singapore, who was expecting a child after trying for 12 years. Then she said she had two girls of her own, & had only managed to conceive after 3 years. "Yes, it takes a while," she said. This conversation stuck in my mind because D & I had been married for a few years by then & were thinking of starting a family.
    As she was leaving, she said, "There are many rooms in my house. When you come to Jakarta you can stay with me." Of course this was a pleasantry since I didn't have her address, but she said it in a simple & sincere tone. She gave me several pieces of silvery-grey batik silk cloth as a farewell present.
    We had actually been instructed not to accept gifts, or if we did, to hand them in. However I left the silks in my car & forgot about them until the Exhibition was long over, & I felt there was no point trying to hand them in by then. I didn't know what to do with them - they were good quality silks, & yet not the kind of thing I could imagine myself wearing. Somehow I didn't have the heart to give them away, though, I think because I rather liked Mrs Agum Gumelar & felt it would be nice to have something to remember her by. The silks were kept away in my cupboard for a long time; but I finally had them tailored into dresses last year.

  14. MonsoonMaiden

    Weather Cartoons

    By MonsoonMaiden,

    There are a lot of funny weather cartoons on the net, like this one :

    However I can't find any I like as much as the following two, which have been pasted on my locker for years :

    I love Woodstock; :lol: he's just so cute. :lol:
  15. MonsoonMaiden
    Group photo : Mrs Lourdes Tibig is in the 2nd row, 5th from left. Donald Tambunan (from the
    ASEAN Secretariat) is in front, extreme right. Next to him is Mr E.H. Al-Majed, the WMO rep.
    ASCMG is the ASEAN Subcommittee on Meteorology and Geophysics. It oversees collaboration between the ASEAN member countries in coordinating various programmes, sharing information (such as that on haze pollution & volcanic ash), & implementing warning systems. The Subcommittee meets annually, and in 1997 Singapore hosted the Meeting.
    I was assigned to help out that year. The first thing I had to do was make nametags & invitation cards. The nametags were to come in two colours, blue for those of us in the organising committee (called the Local Secretariat) & grey for the delegates. The invitation cards were for two official dinners the delegates were to attend, one hosted by our Director & the other by the Minister of State for Communications.
    One of our officers over at the Admin section, HS, was overall in charge. She was very meticulous & particular, & a stickler for doing things by the book. At that time, Laos & Myanmar had just joined ASEAN, & HS cautioned me about using the correct logo because the number of rice stalks on it had now changed from 8 to 10 (one for each member country). She also wanted me to print the logo in the EXACT specified colours (namely Pantone Blue 286, Pantone Red 032 & Pantone Process Yellow).
    I felt it was unrealistic to think one could get the exact colours using an Epson printer; whatever is seen on the PC monitor isn't going to be exactly the same colour when printed out using a home printer, unless a proper calibration has been done. We could have asked a professional printer to do the job, but I guess we were working on a tight budget & it wasn't practical to get it professionally done for such a small number of nametags/cards.
    Fortunately HS seemed satisfied with what I produced. After that she led me to a room where a pile of briefcases was lying on the floor next to a mountain of photocopied papers. I was rather shocked when she told me to sort the papers out & put one set into each briefcase. This is a mindless task & the office attendant could have done it. I enjoy sorting out things for church work or charity events, but in this case MSS had already spent a lot of money training me to be a meteorologist & it didn't make sense to be paying me a Division 1 Officer's salary & having me do Division 4 work. However since this was a one-off thing, I supposed it didn't really matter. I was at it the whole morning, & around noon HS appeared, looking flustered, & told me to go for lunch & that she would finish the job.
    The delegates were basically the Directors or Deputy Directors of all the ASEAN Met. Offices. A representative from WMO and another from the ASEAN Secretariat were also coming. Most of the delegates were arriving the day before the Meeting, & Johnny, one of our Technical Officers, asked me to drive the ASEAN Secretariat rep from the airport to the hotel. The rep's name was Donald Tambunan, and Johnny told me, with a twinkle in his eye, that he was Indonesian, and a "nice & chatty young man".
    When I met him he certainly turned out to be an animated & talkative young man (reminding me in some ways of his famous Duck namesake), & very enthusiastic about his job. Even so I was racking my brains wondering what to say to him in the car, because I knew next to nothing about the ASEAN Secretariat. Fortunately Johnny came along with another passenger for me, Mrs Lourdes Tibig from the Philippines. She had come in place of her Director, & seemed a veteran at meetings like these, so she & Donald had plenty to talk about during the drive to the hotel.
    The first thing the participants from Laos, Vietnam & Myanmar did was to check out of the hotel (Merchant Court) & check into a cheaper one, I forget where now. I discovered this was their usual practice whenever they travelled overseas for seminars or meetings. They manage to save quite a lot of their allowance by doing so.
    On the first morning I helped man the reception, handing the delegates their nametags & one briefcase each. This was my first time at such an event, so I found it interesting. When the Meeting started, my colleague CS was chuckling because he'd discovered that one of the Vietnamese women delegates was a Senator; he seemed quite tickled by this. I was supposed to help record minutes. I wasn't that familiar with all the programmes the Subcommittee had been coordinating, but fortunately we had the agenda in front of us, & rather than miss anything I resorted to what I normally do during uni lectures - simply scribble down everything that was said, whether I understood it or not! :lol:
    Donald Tambunan was in his element during the Meeting. The WMO rep (I think it was Mr E.H. Al-Majed) was a quiet man, who only spoke up when he had to. For some reason CS found Donald quite amusing. There were also a couple of informal discussions held late at night, which CS had to chair, & he was chuckling after one of them because it seems that some of the delegates preferred listening to Mr Al-Majed rather than Donald Tambunan. The latter was quite agitated by this. "But they should listen to me!" he protested, "This is an ASEAN meeting! I am from the ASEAN Secretariat! I am more important than him!!"
    During one of the tea breaks, one of the Vietnamese delegates approached us & wanted a softcopy of the nametags because the next ASCMG Meeting was going to be held in Vietnam. I tried explaining to him that he would have to somehow erase the dates if he wanted to use it. Someone who went to Vietnam the following year for the Meeting came back & told me that the nametags there had been virtually identical to those I had made.
    CS was the one doing most of the work for the minutes, & he had to stay up late to finish them before the last day so that they could be approved by the delegates & a copy made for each delegate to bring back. As the final session was ending, the Thai Director-General started handing out gifts of small notebooks bound with Jim Thompson Thai silk.
    After the Meeting I had to ferry Mr Al-Majed & two of the Malaysian delegates to the airport. I didn't have to worry about conversation this time, because one of the Malaysians talked nonstop all the way. It was pretty amazing - he just went on & on, a virtual monologue. I've never met anyone since who has been able to talk like that.
    A few days after the Meeting, HS gave each of the Local Secretariat a small gift to thank us for our hard work. It was quite nice of her; I received a letter holder in soft, pale wood, & am still using it to hold all my bookmarks to this day.

    The Local Secretariat take a picture; letter holder
  16. MonsoonMaiden
    I came across these photos as I was looking through some of my old files. Not sure where they came from, but this is quite a nice water spout.

    That's one of our container terminals in the foreground, possibly Tanjong Pagar.

  17. MonsoonMaiden

    A Little Gaudi

    By MonsoonMaiden,

    A friend in Auckland sent me some photos, including this nice rainbow.

    However I was more struck by her photo of the University of Auckland Clock Tower :

    It looks quite unique. Why can't we have this in Singapore? I tried finding out more about the architect, but all I could discover was that he is Roy Alstan Lippincott, and that "the Clock Tower combined traditional architectural elements with local decorative motifs : flax flowers, ponga fronds and kaka can be found in the stone detailing".
    It's quite meaningful that local motifs were incorporated in the design, but I'd hoped to find out more. I don't know much about architecture, but this looks rather Gaudi to me. :unsure:
    [Edit : My friend wrote from Auckland :
    Managed to find something on the Clock Tower in a university heritage trail booklet left in the plane pocket on our flight to Queenstown (how queer - anyway, I've kept it as a souvenir). Seems like Lippincott's design was criticised as un-British and out of harmony with NZ national character. It was widely ridiiculed as 'Maori Gothic and denounced for resembling both a wedding cake and a cruet. A poet (Fairburn) suggested it would frighten old ladies in the park. Ha, ha.
    Hmm. Nothing about him being influenced by Gaudi. But I still like it a lot. ]
  18. MonsoonMaiden
    My latest acquisition :

    I saw some reviews in the forum here, so I decided to see if the book was available in Singapore. There are two big bookstores here, Borders and its rival, Kinokuniya. Besides a large collection of books, Borders has comfy chairs, a music section with a good selection of CDs, and a cafe. Kinokuniya has a convenient delivery service where you can order your books online and have them delivered the very next day. Moreover, if you order more than S$50 worth of books, there is no delivery charge.
    I checked both bookstores' websites and both appeared to have the weather book, plus another by CS Lewis (Mere Christianity) which I'd been thinking about getting for some time. The weather book had a different cover to that mentioned on the forum, though. The edition with the tropical cyclone was nicer; there are so many beautiful weather phenomena that could have been featured & they had to choose an umbrella.
    I went to Borders first. There were plenty of books in the religion section, but they didn't seem to be in alphabetical or any sort of order. After searching for a while, I gave up and went to the information counter. The staff member went off to look but returned & informed me that the book was out of stock. Then I asked about the weather book. At first, he couldn't find it in the database. For one thing, I wasn't sure if the title was just "Weather" or "Collins Gem Weather". Then I wasn't sure if Storm Dunlop was the author or if that referred to something else (I mean, what sort of name is that?). Finally he got it on his computer screen & went off to look for it. He returned, saying that it, too, was out of stock.
    After that I went to Kinokuniya. This time I went straight to the service staff at the information counter. Mere Christianity? In a short while she came back with it. Then we had some confusion finding the weather book in the database again, but once she'd located it, she went off & retrieved it in a jiffy.
    Final score : Kinokuniya 1 Borders 0
  19. MonsoonMaiden
    The second airbase I was posted to was Sembawang. It is a helicopter base, open 24 hrs. The Met. Office there was much more pleasant than at Tengah, mainly because there were many large windows. There was also a balcony for observation, & the only direction that couldn't be viewed was south. The working hours were more regular too, either a morning shift (0730 - 1400hrs) or afternoon shift (1330 - 2200hrs).
    The senior forecaster there at the time was Mr L. He was a nice guy, but very fond of talking. I'd heard a story about how he'd been talking to one of the other forecasters when the latter suddenly felt the urge to visit the gents'. No matter, Mr L followed him all the way there, continuing the conversation, stood outside still talking while the poor man did the necessary, then followed him back to the office again, still talking.
    The head technician was a jovial Malay fellow who was always so cheerful that he usually managed to improve my mood, no matter how gloomy I was feeling. Then there was an Indian technician who amused me because he was such a total Anglophile. He'd been a technician back during RAF days, & thought the British were wonderful. He'd changed his own surname to a British name, become an Anglican, & sent his daughter to London to study.
    I had to give a weekly weather briefing here too but only to the senior officers, a group of about 10; and they weren't bothered at all about whether I started off by wishing them good morning or not.

    Being at Sembawang was nice because I've always liked the sound of helicopters (but I like the sleepy, distant drone of propeller planes more, they bring back memories of lazy afternoons at seaside chalets during my school holidays). I often watched the choppers from the balcony, especially at night when the sound of the whirring blades seemed even louder & more dramatic.
    So far the only airbase I haven't worked at is Paya Lebar. That is where American fighter jets (normally from Diego Garcia) land to refuel before leaving for their next stop (Guam, I think). It was also where President George W. Bush was received when he came to Singapore. Of course, security there was extremely tight during the visit. My colleague W (the Hong Kong chap) was stationed there at the time, and kept moaning that any terrorist attack would be directed at the airbase. Despite his complaints, I think he was pretty excited; I guess he got to see Air Force One as well.
  20. MonsoonMaiden
    Besides doing civilian work at Changi Airport, we also have forecasters stationed at military airbases around the island. There was a shortage of manpower at one time, so several of the Changi forecasters had to cover duty there, including me.
    The work consisted mainly of monitoring the weather and issuing a warning if a thunderstorm was going to affect the airbase. It was a good experience because I did a lot more outdoor observation there than I did at Changi. In Changi, we were issuing warnings for locations far from the airport, so we had to rely mostly on the radar. At the airbases, we spent a lot more time peering at the sky & watching the clouds develop.
    The first airbase I went to was Tengah. It was large and sprawling, and many of the buildings were old, including the Met. Office, which was situated below the control tower overlooking the runway. It was a small office, & the forecaster's room was a claustrophobic little cell with no windows except for a small square of glass in the door. The radar display was housed in an adjoining room, where the aircon was so cold that temperatures seemed to reach arctic levels. Every time the phone rang, I would dash to the radar room to have a look first before running back to answer, in case it was the control tower calling for an update. The other disadvantage was that we were surrounded on three sides by trees, so that the only unimpeded view of the sky we had was westward over the runway. This meant that the control tower ironically had a much better view of the clouds developing than we did.
    Tengah had the most peculiar work hours I have seen. They were something like this :
    Mon 0730-1330hrs
    Tue 0730-2130hrs
    Wed 1330-2130hrs
    Thur Rest day
    Fri 0730-1815hrs
    Sat Rest day
    Sun Standby
    There were two other forecasters there, an Indian gentleman called KT, and also Dr CT, who had done his PhD in Japan. Both have since retired. Dr CT was a short & bespectacled man with a loud voice whom everyone affectionately referred to as "Doctor". He was simple & good-natured, & the NS boys loved teasing him (Actually they should be called National Servicemen, but they were only about 17 or 18 yrs of age. National Service is compulsory in Singapore).
    The head technician there was Mr Y, & I liked hearing about his treks in Nepal & various stories about the airbase. I remember him telling me that there used to be a cobra living in a hole in the ground near the Stevenson screen; it was quite bold, & used to come outside in the mornings to sunbathe.
    I once got into trouble with KT because I was experimenting with some animated cursors on the PC (it being a fair day so I had some free time). I tried out this little walking dinosaur & forgot to reinstall the old arrow cursor before I went home.

    The thing about the dinosaur cursor is that the cursor tip is the tip of the tail, but Mr KT didn't know that. The following day I got a lecture from him & was told not to change the settings in the PC in the future. When he'd left, Mr Y, shaking with laughter, told me that KT had become very agitated the day before when he'd discovered the arrow cursor had suddenly turned into a walking dinosaur. He couldn't select anything on the PC screen, & called Y for help. It took them a while to figure out how to get the arrow cursor back.
    We had to give a weather briefing to all the squadrons every week, & Doctor carefully told me what to do. I must open with "Good morning, Base Commander, Deputy Commander, ladies and gentlemen". The trouble is, I didn't know what the Base Commander looked like. The hall is huge, all the squadrons are present, & I'm up there on the stage looking at them from a distance. I had no idea whether the Base Commander was there or not. He sometimes wasn't present & the Deputy would take over instead. I usually solved the problem by only saying "Good morning, ladies and gentlemen."
    I discovered that this wouldn't do, though. No formal complaint was made, but the message got passed down verbally that it wasn't correct protocol. My reasoning was that it would be ridiculous if I greeted the Base Commander when he wasn't present. Fortunately I was only at the airbase temporarily, & I was a civilian & not in the employ of Ministry of Defence, or I guess I would have been demoted.
    Another peculiar procedure everyone had to do was F.O.D. - Foreign Object Detection. When driving in to the control tower it is necessary to cross the runway at one point, & there was an occasion when some debris got sucked into the engine of one of the aircraft. Whether the debris came from the tyres of a vehicle or not, from then on everyone had to stop their car, get out & examine their tyres before proceeding onto the runway. As a result, on approaching the runway one could often see several cars parked there, with their occupants crouched in various positions next to them.
    It took me a while to get used to working at Tengah, especially having to listen to the deafening screech of F16s all day long. Despite the noise I did like watching them, in particular the takeoff and landing. I don't know why but there's always something magical about watching an airplane take flight. I enjoyed watching them practising for NDP as well, flying in formation. One morning I was also lucky enough to catch a parachute jump taking place overhead; it was a nice sight, all the little brightly coloured parachutes in the sky.
    But the best times were in the evenings, when flying had ended for the day. Then a silence descended on the airbase, & it was very pleasant to stand outside & watch the sun set over the runway. This is one of the few places in Singapore where there are no buildings in view, only trees. There was usually a gentle breeze blowing, and a small flock of white birds swirling around in the distance, egrets perhaps. It was a very restful scene.

  21. MonsoonMaiden

    Truly Patrician

    By MonsoonMaiden,

    Pat is one of those ultra-neat people. When we were in Reading her room was always unimagineably tidy, & in the office her locker is always spick & span, books nicely arranged, not a thing out of place. She is always careful & meticulous in her work, and I have never seen her lose her temper.
    She was posted to our climatology section recently, where our archives are kept & which is in charge of met. equipment. Part of her work involves providing weather data required for insurance claims, and also for court cases. Once, she SMSed me and said she was at court. She had been waiting there for 6 hours for her turn - it was a murder case, and she was needed as witness to confirm whether rain could have washed out the evidence. She was whiling her time away by listening to the CID officers tell police stories. When her turn finally came, it only lasted 6 minutes.
    On another occasion, a client requested that a weather station be set up on Jurong Island, so she had to drive all around the Island to find a suitable place to locate it. I thought it interesting because not everyone can enter the Island, you need a pass to gain entry.
    Singapore is hosting the IMF-World Bank meeting in a few weeks' time & the organisers have requested we set up a weather station in case there's a terrorist toxic gas attack (in which case they'd want to know the wind direction and speed to determine how the gas is being dispersed). So that's going to be Pat's next project. (When I told D this he commented that such a weather station would be useless because the technician manning it would probably have been knocked out by the gas anyway).
    Some of our forecasters give courses on Aviation Meteorology at the Singapore Aviation Academy, and I SMSed Pat last week to ask for a softcopy of her lecture notes in case I have to do it in the future. I didn't want to bug her too much so I said D could come over to her office & get the files from her. She SMSed back, "The files are huge." Then she said she would burn them onto a CD for me & leave it in either D's or my locker.
    That's her, considerate. D brought the CD back on Saturday. I didn't have time to look at it at once because we were rushing off for mass.
    (On an unrelated note, on the way to church we passed the Japanese School and to my delight I saw a lot of cute little Japanese children hurrying along the pavement in their colourful kimonos. D said oh yes, the School was celebrating some festival that day, they'd asked us for a forecast and to monitor the weather for them. I really regretted not bringing my camera!).
    When I got home later, I had a look at the CD.

    She'd even made a label with an aeroplane & some text & stuck it on.
    Man. So typical of her.
  22. MonsoonMaiden
    D's hometown is in Ipoh, Malaysia & we normally visit every year around the Chinese New Year period. Ipoh is surrounded by limestone hills, & once you've passed Kuala Lumpur along the North-South Highway, the route becomes quite scenic. D grew up accustomed to seeing hills around & it is one thing he misses here in Singapore.

    Limestone hills in Ipoh. View from the teashop.
    During our stay we normally spend a few days in Cameron Highlands. The weather is cooler there, & it is a very quiet & pleasant place to stay & just relax & be near to nature.
    For D, the Camerons are special because his grandfather used to work there as a chef at Sri Menanti, a holiday bungalow owned by the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. He and his brothers used to visit as children, & he remembers the aroma of his grandfather's cooking wafting down to them as they climbed the hill to the bungalow. During his visits there he would often lie outside on the grassy slopes & watch rainclouds sweep in to cover the town of Brinchang below.
    The attraction of the Camerons for me is that it features a lot in stories told to me in my childhood - my parents went there for their honeymoon, my mother went there in her uni days for retreats, one of my relatives used to own the bus company there, & my maternal grandmother was born in Tapah, a town at the base of the mountain. At that time, Singapore and Malaysia were still one.

    View from our hotel window at dawn; later the same view was obscured by rain clouds.
    The first time we drove up, we could hear cicadas singing loudly - and not like the usual cicada sounds I was familiar with either, they sounded like an alien invasion. On the way up we sometimes stopped at a little stall selling tea to look at the view. There are several hotels there & we usually stayed at Strawberry Park which I liked because of its black and white architecture.

    Strawberry Park; view from the hotel restaurant; morning glory; Tenmoku pottery shop
    I find the small towns there - Ringlet, Tanah Rata and Brinchang - rather depressing, dry, dusty & a lot of the houses having zinc roofs. However there is a shop in Tanah Rata which I faithfully visit every time because I like the Tenmoku pottery there. I seldom see an individual piece I'd like to buy, but I can spend ages just looking around, at the colours & textures, & vessels in all shapes and sizes.

    The Smoke House
    There is also a large Tudor style bungalow called The Smoke House which I fell in love with when we first drove by ... too expensive for us to stay at, but nice to admire from the outside. It may not be a big deal to someone from the UK, but it's nice to find a place like this in Malaysia.
  23. MonsoonMaiden

    The Polar Low

    By MonsoonMaiden,

    Ask a weather watcher what his/her favourite weather is, & the popular answers are usually thunderstorms/hurricanes/tornadoes. Either that or it would be sunny weather, or snow. But since the atmosphere produces a host of other phenomena as well, I always find it interesting to discover those that are less well-known.
    I first heard of the polar low from one of my lecturers in Reading, Dr George Craig. He was from Toronto, and had studied the convective processes in polar lows for his PhD. This was new to me because at the time I associated convection with warmer places like the tropics.

    There's a nice little writeup on polar lows from Wikipedia.
    MetEd also has a nice section on Polar Low Forecasting.
  24. MonsoonMaiden

    SAR & SAREX

    By MonsoonMaiden,

    We have several SAREX (Search and Rescue Exercises) every year, organised by the RCC (Rescue Coordination Centre). The date of the SAREX is usually faxed to us a few months before & most of the forecasters can then be seen checking the roster to see who's going to be on duty that day. The rescue location is announced on the day itself, & our job consists of providing wind, weather & sea state conditions every 3 hours for that area.
    During the time I've worked here, I've encountered real-life SARs (Search & Rescues) twice :

    On 19 Dec 1997, Silkair flight 185 crashed into the Musi River near Palembang, enroute from Jakarta to Singapore. The crash was surrounded by much controversy amid speculation that the pilot deliberately crashed the aircraft in a mass suicide/homicide. All 104 people on board died.
    On 3 Jan 2003, a Singapore navy ship, the RSS Courageous, collided with a merchant vessel, the ANL Indonesia, near Horsburgh Lighthouse.

    ANL Indonesia didn't seem too severely damaged, but the navy ship looked bad. Four young Navy women officers who had been in the sleeping quarters at the aft of the ship were reported missing.

    I jotted this down at the time :
    "We didn't start the SAR here till yesterday morning, although the collision took place the previous night; and last night they stopped as well, and only started again this morning at dawn.
    The RCC has only requested data till 0200UTC tomorrow (10am local time). What does that mean? Do they think they will be able to find the women by 10am?"
    The RCC was supposed to call during my night shift to let me know when they were stopping for the night, but they didn't (later I discovered it was an oversight on their part). I remember being in the brightly-lit airconditioned office, & thinking that it was hard to imagine what it must be like to be out there in the dark, combing the sea for bodies. Of the four missing officers, only three bodies were recovered; the fourth woman was never found.
  25. MonsoonMaiden
    Pat has an 8-year old nephew living in Australia. One day in the office she grinned at me & said, "Want to read a letter from Julian?" She handed me a white envelope with the words :
    Ee's Boss
    Mad Office
    solemnly written in scrawly handwriting on it.
    It turned out that "Ee" referred to "Yi-Yi" which is "Auntie" in Chinese.
    The letter read :
    Dear Ee's Boss,
    can you please give my Ee time off as leave to visit me in Sydney for my Confirmation. My Ee is my God-ma.
    I long to see her in person.
    Please let her come to see me thank you
    God Bless you,
    Yours lovingly
    Julian the Boss
    PS. or else!
    *
    Pat giggled & said that Julian thought our boss wasn't willing to give her leave at the end of the month, so he'd written the letter & given it to her dad (who was visiting at the time). I asked if she was going to show the letter to our boss but she laughed & shook her head. I think she should have, though.
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