By Felicia Wong and Derrick Ho
A FREAKISH storm with strong winds uprooted trees, damaged cars and left a trail of destruction on Wednesday night, all within about 15 minutes.
There were numerous reports of fallen trees island-wide, with at least one car damaged by the falling branches in an open carpark. At a housing estate in Dover Road, a large tree almost snapped in half and lay fallen on its side, with other branches strewn across the grassy area.
Eyewitnesses also reported that large plastic barricades used in roadworks were blown across a road by the strong winds, causing traffic obstruction. Pham Tan Hung found a large tree fallen outside Hong Leong Gardens in Clementi while on his way to work on Thursday morning. 'It's a shocking scene to me. It covered the whole walking path to the bus stop, around 6 to 8 metres,' he wrote to straitstimes.com
Weather maps from the National Environmental Agency (NEA)'s website showed that a rain storm blew over Singapore shortly after 11pm on Wednesday.
Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter were also abuzz with postings about the freak storm. Bloggers in Singapore also recounted personal stories, with many saying they were awoken by the violent rattling and slamming of doors caused by the winds. Others reported car alarms going off.
'We had to duck from the many things that were blowing out of control. There was a road block signage that blew across a major road. heavy duty dustbins dropped like bowling pins. We had to take refuge on the outside of a building' wrote mistipurple on her blog.
'I don't know how widely the winds could have travelled, but tonight for about five minutes, I experienced one of the strongest winds since returning to Singapore,' wrote blogger mis-erialc.
'In fact, I don't remember a time that we've ever experienced winds so strong. As the wind repeatedly assaulted my blinds, I couldn't help but look outside at the environmental commotion it was causing - the bending of trees, the picking up and tossing around of random objects outside.'
Referring to wunderground shown at 12mn, the wind speed is 12 mph. (Pics from http://www.wunderground.com/history/station/48698/2009/4/23/DailyHistory.html)
Anyway , I am quite curious and wondered if there's any research about such "extreme"? winds conditions in Singapore. Using the local campus database, I am able to found one: Extreme wind characteristics over Singapore ( Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics 83 (1999) 61- 69 by Edmund C. C. Choi or you can access here (abstract)). I am not able to do much searching as I still have exams.
- wong chee tat :)
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