SINGWeather ®

T's one widget that is religiously look at every now and then during the day and sometimes, the first thing when i switch on the PC. I shouldn't be doing this. Everytime I do look at it, I chide myself for being foolish.

Sometimes, it catches my attention in the newspaper column & on FM too and to a lesser extent, on the local TV news.

And I gather that a lot many of my colleagues also pay a lot of attention to it.

It's the singapore weather update.

I am not weird or demented. Neither are my colleagues. Why do we keep checking the weather? Force of habit perhaps. Me? Am a mariner by profession. Meteorology runs in my blood.

On the face of it, it would appear that I am making a mountain of a molehill.
But please bear with me folks.

Those of you who have some rudimentary knowledge of Singapore, would have already caught what I am talking about.

For the uninitiated, Singapore weather is complexingly simple. I shall lay out the full complexities bare shortly.

But first let's see the background. To be honest, I am impressed with the government being more responsible than many of my colleagues and I are .

Why? hm. The Singaporean government does not have a separate Meteorology Department. casually referred to as the Met dept in the western world. The reasons will become apparent as you read a bit further.

In the West, the Met dept boffin is idolised in many movies. He/She is depicted usually as someone who wields the whip on an enormous amount of computing power to arrive at a complex weather outlook which many of us do not understand. The lead character will then ask the Met boffin to speak in 'English'. Which then results in the translation of Metspeak to English for the viewers to digest and help move the plot ahead.

Met/Weather presenters on the western news channels are power dressed fast speaking individuals who are always talking about the corner of the world that you are least connected to / interested in.

Now, back to Singapore.

Fact 1 - There are no Met / weather bulletins /presenters on Singaoporean News.

Shocking? No!
the whole Island is so small, the weather bulletin would require only about 20 seconds to complete the nation's weather update.

Singapore's size is about 1/6th of Boston or 1/2 of London or 1/4th of Paris or 1/9th of Chicago or about 1/3rd of Hyderabad.

Fact 2 - There are only 2 seasons in singapore - Normal season & Rainy Season.
Infact even if I say there is only 1 season, I wouldn't be too far from the truth.

I can summarise singapore's annual weather through out as 'Hot & humid all through the day with chances of thundershowers towards late in the afternoon, clearing later'.
The difference between the 2 seasons is that the 'chances' of rain in the rainy season is significantly higher.

Which is why I catch myself every time I look at the weather update on my desktop. I would do well with the umbrella in my backpack that's with me all the time.