Anmol Rattan

This guy is a gem! John Doe [name changed] of the Fiji Meteorological Center is a guy with talent. Last week I was driving home, when all of a sudden there is this heavy rain. So much so, that I couldn't see a meter in front of my bonnet! Thats when I remembered how I just read this article coming out of office:

Weather will add to water woes: Prasad

Monday, April 07, 2008

Bas Mati, of Valelevu, refills a basin with water from the drum

Update: 2:11PM THE dry spell affecting the Central Division should not be taken lightly because it will add to the water crisis affecting most parts of Suva, says Rajendra Prasad.

Mr Prasad, the director of the Fiji Meteorological Department, made the comment when asked for his views on the lower than average rainfall recorded in most parts of the country.

He said the past three months have been drier than usual and people needed to take pre-cautions.

Mr Prasad said the prediction showed the dry season would affect reservoirs, especially the storage of water, and could add to the agony faced by people in most parts of Suva.

He said the month of March was drier than expected because of the dominant effect of the high pressure system over the group.

Mr Prasad said this was caused by the predominant northeasterly winds over Fiji for most of the month resulting in below average rainfall in the southeastern Viti Levu.[1]

Why is this guy a gem? Well lets look at this from an engineering point of view. People usually dislike errors, more so engineers. But error as a term is often mis-judged. Working on some research projects I came to use these errors and modify them to feed into my system (robotic vehicle). Now the things is, if your error is constant (meaning u keep making the same amount of mistake all the time), you are much better off! You can aptly correct the system by predicting how much you would be off by (we used a PID controller to do this).

Now again why is this guy a gem? Well, he constantly makes the opposite conclusions regarding weather! Remember the two cyclones that hit us some months back? For the first one he said:

JD: It will create havoc! Buckle down!
Reality: It went over us!
Explanation: This cyclone followed a strange path!

Second one:
JD: Its expected to pass over the group
Reality: It smashed us! Lol!
Explanation: Lack of equipment!

And now the weather! Man this guy is good! Now you know when to take your umbrella to work!

References: [1] Fiji Times [link]