Tuesday notes

I have just emailed the Mauritius Weather Office, with a formal recommendation that the country be put on Yellow Alert over TC Gula. The latest forecast vindicates that admittedly bold move. I'm not normally that assertive, but if I have close on 800 people from Mauritius looking at my wee blog, somebody is short of information.

Celestial bodies will feature prominently in the news, I just hope they don't end up in my porridge. An asteroid tends to mess up your coiffure and all that. One has just shot past at 8.33 this morning, passing at just over half a million kilometers. That's a close shave. Another asteroid will slam into Mars tomorrow, if astronomers get it right.

Fiji is clearing up the mess, left behind by cyclone Gene. The system, formally of tropical storm strength, carried gusts of 90 mph. Water and power supplies are interrupted, and the authorities said they were caught out.

That is not correct. On Sunday 27 January, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center in Hawaii issued the first warning for Gene at 2100 GMT, following a Tropical Cyclone Formation alert at 0900 the same day. The Fijian's own warning centre did not properly pick up on Gene at that time, saying there was a low probability of a cyclone forming.

I realise that Hurricane forecasting is difficult, and that the systems themselves are more unpredictable than usual. However, I don't believe in hurricanes blowing up out of nothing.