Cyclone Xavier made a sudden and early start to cyclone season this week, forming just above the top of Vanuatu. It is a timely reminder of the need to be prepared for cyclones, including making handy references to online sources of information on current cyclones.
With respect to computers, cyclones bring two main threats – rain and electricity disruption. Rain tends to travel a lot more horizontally when pushed along by a cyclone, finding its way into houses and offices that normally would be be kept dry. Electrical equipment should either be moved to a location where rain will not get into it (even if windows get broken or roofs get ripped off) or should be covered with tough plastic that will not get blown off if exposed to wind.
Unplug all electrical equipment to avoid damage through mains power fluctuations, especially sensitive and/or expensive items like the computer system unit, monitors, printers, and faxes. Unplug any internet or phone line connections too, as electrical surges can come in through phone and communications links as well as mains power lines.
For information on current cyclones, the Fiji meteorological service covers the region including Vanuatu. The Vanuatu meteorological are also effective at getting information out, but they concentrate on radio broadcasts and do not maintain a website (yet). The Fiji Met have a number of useful links, including latest text of forecasts along with visual and infra-red satellite images. Infra-red images are useful 24 hours, wherease visual images are only any good during daylight hours. Fiji Met can be found at www.met.gov.fj – see advisories.html for up-to-date text, and sat-map.html for images. Note that the Vanuatu Met information is far more local and is the best source of information.
Additional detail can be found at the Australian end too (Australia and Fiji are responsible for monitoring cyclones in the south-west Pacific, depending on where they start and where they go). See australiasevereweather.com/cyclones for maps showing the intensity, previous path and forecast path plus other technical data.
At a more general level, you can see what sort of cyclone season we might be in for by having a look at the sea temperatures in this region. Warmer sees provide the energy for cyclones. Apparently there is a weak-to-moderate El Nino happening – not good for cyclones over the Cooks, but Vanuatu will probably experience slightly less than average cyclones. Which is not to say that a direct hit from the expected 2 to 2.6 cyclones would be any less damaging! The sea surface temperature chart can be found at www.ssec.wisc.edu/data/sst/latest_sst.gif, where the redder it gets, the warmer the sea. There is a large puddle of very warm sea way up above Vanuatu, but Vanuatu itself is expected to see less than average temperatures over the next 6 months.
Finally, for forecasts that put it all together, see the Island Climate Update. This provides a recap of recent forecasting accuracy and outlines how the next few months are expected to be in terms of temperature, rain and cyclone activity. There is a PDF download that explains it all quite well, for most of the western Pacific region. See www.niwascience.co.nz/ncc/icu/
Questions? - Merlin Pacific IT provide effective & efficient business IT. Join VIGNET (Vanuatu Internet User Group) email discussions, register at tinyurl.com/zcusl
