Asian extremes: Experience and exchange in the development of meteorological knowledge c. 1840-1930

• Main Authors: WILLIAMSON, Fiona, WILKINSON, Clive
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2017
• Subjects: Asian Studies; Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/2657; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/3914/viewcontent/8Williamson_Wilkinson_.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

On 29 July 1939, the aircraft carrier HMS Eagle was off the northern entrance of the Formosa Strait, approximately 25⁰N, 121⁰E. The ship’s meteorological officer was formulating the current synoptic weather situation, which included a typhoon to the south or south-east of Formosa with a second typhoon much further east in about 144⁰E. It might be expected that in 1939, the existence and position of a typhoon could be corroborated easily by contemporary ‘experts’ situated nearby. However ‘The utmost confusion prevailed’ noted the officer ‘among the experts at Zikawei, Manila & Hong Kong today …I think there is no doubt that a typhoon reached Formosa … this was also confirmed by Zikawei’s signals, but Manila gave it a position much further East while Hong Kong stoutly maintained that there were no typhoons on the map at all’.1 The level of bewilderment over such a significant event may seem surprising to our modern eyes but this would not be considered unusual to anyone who had studied the correspondence of the above mentioned observatories for the early twentieth century. Confusion, mediocre communication channels and, on occasion, outright antipathy, limited what might otherwise have been a profitable and progressive relationship between meteorological services. This is explained by the history of the development of meteorology in the Asia-Pacific region.