Warning
"tropical Cyclone NARGIS"
No. 9 (59/2551) Time Issued : May 03, 2008
At 10.00 a.m. today, tropical Cyclone “NARGIS” in Myanmar was centered at latitude 17.0 °N and longitude 96.0 °E or about 300 km southwest of Mae Hong Son province with maximum sustained wind of 120 km/hr. The cyclone is moving east-northeast with wind speed of 15 km/hr along areas of Mae Hong Son tonight and is going to be downgraded. During 3-5 May, a succession of rain will be likely with heavy to very heavy rainfall in many places over the North, the Central and the East. People in the west part of Thailand, especially in Mae Hong Son, Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Tak, Kamphaengphet, Lamphun, Lampang, Phrae, Uttaradit, Sukhothai, Phichit, Phitsanulok, Nakhon Sawan, Uthai Thani, Kanchanaburi, Ranong, Chanthaburi and Trat should beware of flooding conditions. High sea is likely in the Andaman Sea. All ships should proceed with caution and small boats should keep ashore during 3-5 May.
The above warning was published on the Thai Meteorological Department.
PocketWeather reported this morning that winds in Yangon were reaching 120 km/hr, gusting at 240km/hr - however I did have to fix a bug in processing the gust data - was only parsing 2 digit wind speeds - the gusting required 3 digit wind speed - now fixed...
Current is here
Current is here
Current is here
Judging from the above maps, it looks like the storm will pass to the North West of us. It has been raining a lot in the last week, although nothing to do with this storm, but apparently as a result of rain making...
Winds is picking up a little (compared to the normally very calm/no wind conditions). Unlike the UK which is constantly battered by strong winds all the time, trees and most peoples homes in the country are not designed to survive anything more than a strong breeze...
When it comes to towns and cities, although not regulated, constructions techniques use concrete, more concrete, and to be on the safe side, still more concrete...all hand mixed - and will survive just about anything...apart from...
Update: Sunday Evening 4th May 2008 - well, other than a bit of rain on, we could have been completely unaware of what had recently happened on the coast where reportedly over 300 have been killed and 75% of the buildings destroyed - see
here for more information.
