Weather gone haywire

Two weather disturbances, occurring half a world apart of each other, produced results that contrasted greatly with expectations. Typhoon Mina in the Philippines, and Hurricane Irene in the United States became what early forecasts said they were not.

Typhoon Mina, moving ever so slowly east of the Philippines, kept the nation guessing as to its real intentions. For so many days, weathermen kept saying Mina was not going to make any landfall or pose any real danger to the country.

Based on available track patterns, weathermen were well within the bounds of their own experience to suggest there was nothing to worry about. Mina was likely to skirt the countrywide and move on up to Japan or Taiwan.

But by weekend, it was clear Mina had changed her mind. It was not only going to directly threaten Northern Luzon, barely missing landfall in Cagayan by the skin of a forecaster’s teeth, it had also gained considerable strength.

From the low 50 kph since it appeared on the scopes, Mina eventually became a 200 kph howler that brought great devastation to Luzon. In other words, the underestimated proved the underestimates wrong.

Over in the United States, also on its eastern seaboard, Hurricane Irene became the biggest media event since Katrina. Huge and relatively strong — over 100 kph — Irene was called a “historic storm” by the media.

This was because it was expected to move way up north where storms, often born and bred in warmer tropical waters, very seldom go. It is not often in the lifetime of average Americans that tropical storms would go as high up as New York.

But that is precisely what the weathermen had forecast. And it was because of this uniqueness that made it a great media event. Fox News, for instance, devoted 24-hour coverage to the storm.

And when the media make something an event, government naturally responds accordingly. In time, the entire government machinery was mobilized to meet Irene head-on. Mandatory evacuations were ordered, mass transport systems were shut down.

Of course, most Filipinos, used to weathering storms in excess of 100 kph, were probably watching the American response to Irene with amusement. But Americans, brought to its knees by Katrina, were not about to let lack of preparations bring them down again.

But Irene, from its original 100 kph category 3 status eventually got worn down and was an almost completely washed up storm (by Philippine standards) by the time it hit New York. Of course a storm is still a storm, and America was far from escaping unscathed.

As far as being the media event it was hyped to be, however, Irene proved to be a big disappointment, at least as far as the preparations were concerned. The evacuations alone meant so much hassle for almost nothing.

Yet again a storm is always a storm. And any preparation is never a case of nothing. It is always best to be prepared. And the story of these two storms — Mina in the Philippines and Irene in the United States — should prove there is nothing better than being prepared.

And being prepared should prove all the more imperative in these times of changing weather patterns on account of climate change. Weather forecasting has clearly become even more challenging as nature’s forces start going haywire.