Lost Horizons

So everyone is whingeing about HKO

As I predicted the other day Prapiroon, "God of Rain", passed close to Hong Kong. A lot of people are asking why the Observatory didn't up the warning to an eight (where everyone goes home - and you can't get a taxi), and some are even suggesting that it was a conspiracy of the Powers that Be.

HKMacs reckons that the eye passed over Hong Kong at about 11 o'clock on Thursday morning, HKMacs: Typhoon Prapiroon. It is unlikely, as the wind would have reversed direction by 180 degrees if the eye had passed over, and it didn't.

However, I can understand why he and many other people are upset with the warning system that is in place. This warning system was originally designed for seafarers, it is based on mean wind speed (usually one minute mean speeds)- great for seafarers, as they are worried about the waves and these depend a lot on mean wind speeds.

But, the purpose of a typhoon system is to give people enough warning to prevent loss of life and damage to property, and damage is most often caused by gusts of wind. In the south Indian Ocean they categorise their cyclones by the maximum speed of the gusts, not by the mean wind speeds.

They also have a timed system so there is a certain amount of daylight left before the wind gets to strong - this gives people enough time to make preparations.

Now, I am only a guest in this country, and its not my job to tell them how to run their country, but I do strongly feel that a risk based approach is needed to the warning system, and I hope it is revamped to take into account the concerns of the people (and, not just people like me who wanted to knock off work early), and the warning system takes into account the outlying areas and not just Victoria Harbour.

Thankfully there were very few people hurt when this storm passed.

posted by Luke @ 6:00 PM