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I posted yesterday that Tropical Storm Malou was predicted to slide up the Yellow Sea between China and the Korean Peninsula, bypassing Yeosu. But when I checked the Weather Underground website this morning after I woke up, I was surprised to see that Malou’s predicted path had been changed to take it through South Korea, much on the same track that Kompasu took–namely, through Seoul. However, the Korean Meteorological Administration predicts that Malou is heading directly for Yeosu, sometime on Tuesday, though we’re starting to feel its effects already. At any rate, we’re in for several inches of rain and gusty winds tomorrow and thereafter. Here’s the KMA forecast. Click on the image for a larger version.
Related posts: - Tropical Storm Malou, Typhoon Naming System Well, TD 10 did develop into Tropical Storm Malou; however, it doesn’t appear that it’s going to gain any more strength before its demise, and it’s predicted path takes it...
- Tropical Storm Dianmu The first named storm of the season to approach this area has been dubbed Dianmu, which, appropriately, is a goddess of lightning and thunder in Chinese mythology. According to Weather...
- Typhoon Megi — A Fizzle Yes, Megi petered out before reaching Andong. We did get about 4 inches of rain in 24 hours, more than usual, but not exceptional and not enough to wreak havoc....
Well, TD 10 did develop into Tropical Storm Malou; however, it doesn’t appear that it’s going to gain any more strength before its demise, and it’s predicted path takes it close to the east coast of China and then shows it veering northeast across the Yellow Sea (the West Sea, to Koreans) to make landfall in North Korea. I doubt that it will have much affect on Yeosu if the predictions are correct.
By the way, Malou is a Chinese word meaning “agate” or “chalcedony” according to the Pacific Storm Tracker on Stars and Stripes. I much prefer the naming system for typhoons than I do the American naming of hurricanes. I mean, hurricanes get named for every Tom, Dick and Mary–literally. US weather is acquainted with hurricanes on a hum-drum, first-name basis. Here in the Far East, the typhoon names are much more exotic and evocative in meaning–chalcedony, mythological gods and goddesses, trees, rainbow and even milk pudding. Here’s a list of the current typhoon names adopted by the “Typhoon Committee for the western North Pacific Ocean and the South China Sea.” Malou is in Column IV near the bottom of the list. It looks like in a year or so they might have to compile a new list.
Another thing you’ll notice about the list, if you look, is that many countries in the area contribute to the naming, not just one country. The US is even on the list of contributors. I think it would be interesting to name some hurricanes in Spanish, the other predominant language of the Americas. How about Hurricane Merengue or Arco Iris (rainbow) for starters?
Furthermore, many Atlantic hurricanes are born off the coast of Africa, so there could even be a few African references thrown in. I think it would make for a vastly more interesting naming system. 
Related posts: - Tropical Storm Dianmu The first named storm of the season to approach this area has been dubbed Dianmu, which, appropriately, is a goddess of lightning and thunder in Chinese mythology. According to Weather...
- Kompasu Update Kompasu is now a category 2 typhoon, packing winds of around 105 mph and bearing down for a direct hit on Okinawa. For updates on what’s happening there, read Joe...
- Another Storm Brewing–TD 10 Well, Kompasu has come and gone. Yeosu got between 4 and 5 inches of rain, and I haven’t seen any wind damage, so we got out of it relatively unscathed....
Well, Kompasu has come and gone. Yeosu got between 4 and 5 inches of rain, and I haven’t seen any wind damage, so we got out of it relatively unscathed. Much of the rain seemed to come down early this morning, between 5 and 5:30, right after I woke up. I mean it REALLY poured with an intensity that we certainly didn’t see in TS Dianmu.
In Seoul, parts of the massive subway system were shut down, power was lost in some areas, flights were canceled and 3 people were killed, according to various reports by The Chosun Ilbo, Bloomberg News and The Associated Press.
Now, however, another storm is brewing just over the horizon. Tropical Depression 10 is forming in nearly the same area of the Pacific where Kompasu was born. Weather Underground shows the depression gradually gaining strength until it hits the southeast coast of Korea (that’s us, more or less–we’re south central) as a category 2 typhoon next Monday evening. It’s still very early in the game, so it could hit anywhere or be swept out to sea before it reaches us. Stay tuned.
Related posts: - Kompasu Update Kompasu is now a category 2 typhoon, packing winds of around 105 mph and bearing down for a direct hit on Okinawa. For updates on what’s happening there, read Joe...
- Tropical Storm Kompasu Kompasu, the Japanese word for the southern sky constellation Circinus (the Compass), is headed for Korea and might arrive here Wednesday evening or Thursday morning. According to latest estimates on...
- Tropical Storm Dianmu The first named storm of the season to approach this area has been dubbed Dianmu, which, appropriately, is a goddess of lightning and thunder in Chinese mythology. According to Weather...
It looks like Kompasu is going to come ashore way up near the DMZ or Seoul, thus leaving Yeosu pretty much out of the path of the category 3 typhoon. We’ll probably get several inches of rain and 30-35 mph winds, but nothing too severe. The huge megalopolis of Seoul and its environs will probably get nailed quite badly. Let’s hope everyone up that way is prepared for the worst.
Right now, Kompasu is packing winds of around 115 mph with gusts up 145, according to the Weather Underground site. The forecast calls for winds to diminish somewhat and for it to come ashore as a category 2 typhoon on Thursday morning–still plenty mean. In Yeosu, we currently have cloudy skies, light winds and no rain. Our worst will probably come later this evening and very early Thursday. More later.
Related posts: - Kompasu Update Kompasu is now a category 2 typhoon, packing winds of around 105 mph and bearing down for a direct hit on Okinawa. For updates on what’s happening there, read Joe...
- Tropical Storm Kompasu Kompasu, the Japanese word for the southern sky constellation Circinus (the Compass), is headed for Korea and might arrive here Wednesday evening or Thursday morning. According to latest estimates on...
- Another Storm Brewing–TD 10 Well, Kompasu has come and gone. Yeosu got between 4 and 5 inches of rain, and I haven’t seen any wind damage, so we got out of it relatively unscathed....
Kompasu is now a category 2 typhoon, packing winds of around 105 mph and bearing down for a direct hit on Okinawa. For updates on what’s happening there, read Joe Ornauer’s blog on Stars and Stripes magazine.
Weather Underground is forecasting that it’ll become a cat 3 storm before weakening back to cat 2 while slamming into the west coast of Korea on Thursday morning. Right now, the predicted track has Kompasu coming ashore near Seoul, so Yeosu doesn’t appear to be likely to take the full brunt of the typhoon, though we’ll probably get more than enough rain from it. Stay tuned for more updates as the situation develops.
Related posts: - Typhoon Kompasu Update It looks like Kompasu is going to come ashore way up near the DMZ or Seoul, thus leaving Yeosu pretty much out of the path of the category 3 typhoon....
- Tropical Storm Kompasu Kompasu, the Japanese word for the southern sky constellation Circinus (the Compass), is headed for Korea and might arrive here Wednesday evening or Thursday morning. According to latest estimates on...
- Another Storm Brewing–TD 10 Well, Kompasu has come and gone. Yeosu got between 4 and 5 inches of rain, and I haven’t seen any wind damage, so we got out of it relatively unscathed....
Kompasu, the Japanese word for the southern sky constellation Circinus (the Compass), is headed for Korea and might arrive here Wednesday evening or Thursday morning. According to latest estimates on the Weather Underground site, Kompasu will probably be a category 1 typhoon by that time. It’s also estimated that it will track somewhat north of Yeosu, but, of course, these storms are quite unpredictable, so we could end up in the bullseye. More later as things develop.
Related posts: - Typhoon Kompasu Update It looks like Kompasu is going to come ashore way up near the DMZ or Seoul, thus leaving Yeosu pretty much out of the path of the category 3 typhoon....
- Kompasu Update Kompasu is now a category 2 typhoon, packing winds of around 105 mph and bearing down for a direct hit on Okinawa. For updates on what’s happening there, read Joe...
- Another Storm Brewing–TD 10 Well, Kompasu has come and gone. Yeosu got between 4 and 5 inches of rain, and I haven’t seen any wind damage, so we got out of it relatively unscathed....
The rainy season was supposed to have ended a while back, but it seems to have been extended into this week, one of my vacation weeks. We had a couple of inches of rain a few days ago, an inch and a half today, and anywhere from 2-4 inches forecast for tomorrow through Sunday noon. Sheesh.
There was a bit of a break yesterday, though, so I went to the Jongpo Ocean Park walkway to take some photos and process them using a technique known as high dynamic range (HDR). In short, HDR photography attempts to capture the full range of all the dark areas and all the very light areas that might not be normally possible in a standard digital photo. For example, a darkly shaded area on a sunny day might not be able to capture all the detail in the shadows and might overexpose the brightly lit areas. In HDR photography, several shots are taken, and some of them are intentionally underexposed, some are overexposed and one is taken at normal exposure. Special software lets you combine these different exposures into one, with the result being that detail can be seen in the shadows and the bright areas aren’t overexposed, or “blown out.” That’s the simple explanation.
Yesterday was one of those days where we had some bright sunshine and dark clouds present in the late afternoon hours, usually one of the best shooting times of the day. I took a bunch of HDR photos and processed them. Some of the results are below. Unfortunately, I didn’t use my tripod, so they’re not the crispest of shots. Still, they give some sense of the potential of this type of photography. One result of this style is that you can use the software to give some very surreal (some would say unreal) shots. I think artistic is a better word, one that is best applied to results from photographers that are more familiar with this style than me. Still, here are a few of my first attempts.
Here’s the original photo of the new bridge spanning Dolson Island with the mainland. (Hmmm, is it my imagination or are the two spans off a foot or two from hooking up exactly?)
Here’s the HDR shot.
I’ve got a lot more detail in the hill to the right and better coloring in the large cloud in the middle, as well as in other areas. (Click the photos, of course, for larger shots.)
Here’s another one of the two spans. In the original, the foreground boats lack much detail or color. Here, they’re much more vibrant.
Ok, now for the more “artsy” stuff. In this one, the apartment buildings on the hill were very dark in the normally exposed shot and the red Hamel Light was merely a colorless silhouette, due to the brilliance of the sky. Here, I’m able to draw out their details while simultaneously bringing out detail in the clouds.
This one’s even more surreal.
Finally, here’s a shot of the walkway itself, sort of a “study in blue.” For this shot and the above two, definitely click for the larger photos.
I’ll be posting more of these types of shots from time to time, as the situation merits. Leave me a comment to let me know what you think. More later.
Related posts: - Buddhist temple murals I’ve been going back through some of my newer and not-so-new photos of Yeosu that I haven’t posted to the blog or in the Photo Gallery, so I’m going to...
- CPR Student Photos Here are the photos I took today of my students at the CPR–our final regular class together. Parting is such sweet sorrow. Students, click here to view the photos. Click...
- Photos Finally, I’ve started posting some photos to the Gallery. I processed some of the Bangkok shots this evening, so click on the Gallery on the main page to view them....
Wow, I was watching the Yankee game this morning (Sunday, in the States) when the broadcasters announced the starting pitchers for the August 23rd game, Yanks at Toronto. One of my students at the Dominican Republic Yankee baseball academy is going for New York. Ivan Nova is a charismatic, 6-foot 4-inch, 23-year old from the D.R., and I’m really going to enjoy watching him pitch his first major league start, though he pitched a few games in relief earlier this year. It’s quite a huge deal for him. Here are his stats on Baseball Refrence.
I joked with Ivan about what his nickname might be in the Majors; I said it could be “Ivan the Terrible,” but he told me that “Super Nova” was going to be his moniker. I think I have his email address, so I’m going to send him congratulations after he wins tomorrow. Good luck, Ivan! Here’s a photo of him that I posted back on Nov. 16, 2007, when part of the team visited an orphanage in Santo Domingo. The kids loved him, (like I said–charismatic), and he was swamped by young autograph seekers.
The university conducts student surveys after every semester to ascertain how we teachers are viewed by our classes. Well, the results from last semester came out last week and I had the highest rating by far, at 93%, with the faculty average being 85% or so. The students “grade” us in categories such as “The teacher arrived in class on time,” “The teacher was well-prepared,” “The teacher used outside materials appropriately,” etc. However, I look on this stuff as mere popularity ratings, not proficiency, and your score is dependent on the kind of students you have for that particular semester (age, hometown, interests, major, etc.). I won this before, in my first semester here (Fall, 2008), and I received a 100,00 won prize and a nice certificate. I also finished near the bottom in the semester right after that, while not drastically changing my methods or presentation, though I’m always striving to learn from my mistakes and get better. Like I said–a popularity contest, though it’s not bad for an old guy, I guess.  More later.
Related posts: - Nova Ivan Nova, that is. The young man had quite a good start a few days ago–so good, in fact, that team management decided to give him a second start this...
- Ivan Nova–Good News, Bad News The good news is that young Mr. Nova picked up his first major league victory as the winning pitcher in the Yanks’ 2-1 win over the White Sox on Sunday....
- Opening Day and Korean Holidays Opening Day of baseball season today. I was able to enjoy watching the Red Sox lose to Baltimore, but it should be a heated battle, to say the least, between...
Korea has had a bit of a heat wave going on since at least last weekend, and temperatures today are reaching the mid-90s F. That doesn’t sound bad, but with the afternoon humidity in the 50, 60 and 70% range, it feels quite a bit hotter. Yeosu is a bit “cooler” than some areas, with a high of 88 today, but still uncomfortable. I went jogging this morning at 6:30, and the temperature was already at 79 F., according to the official Korean Meteorological website, with the humidity at 91%. Needless to say, I was soaking wet after one hour of punishment. 
Ipchu, the start of autumn, according to the traditional Korean solar calendar, is today, according to the Joong An Daily English-language newspaper. At this time, temperatures are supposed to become more moderate from the summer highs, but the newspaper also reports that meteorologists are predicting that the heat will linger into the middle of September. Here’s a report from August of 2006 about another heat wave that occurred near Ipchu.
I’ll take this hot, humid, sunny weather over hot, humid, rainy weather any day. The Yeosu forecast calls for more of the same throughout next week, which is great because I have the week off until classes begin on August 30th. Actually, university classes don’t start until September 1st, but evening adult classes begin on the 30th.
My plan for next week is to get out and take some night photos of the industrial complex and other well-lit areas of Yeosu. Hopefully, I’ll post some of them here soon. More later.
Related posts: - Back in Action Yes, I’m back in frigid, windy Yeosu, not enjoying the change from the warm weather of the previous three weeks. I returned on Sunday feeling a little under the weather–I...
- In Yeosu First, I’ve posted some photos at the bottom of the previous entry, showing some of the flood waters from the Mekong in Laos and Thailand. Scroll down to take a...
- Nearing the End Thought I’d better post something, just to let everyone know I’m still kickin’. This starts the last week of formal classes at the CPR, and I’m giving my students an...
Dianmu has left the area, heading out to sea. According to the KMA website, Yeosu got around 5 1/2 inches of rain, which was slacking off as I woke up this morning at 5 a.m. The winds probably got up to around 40 mph, because I saw a few metal garbage bins overturned and numerous leaves and small, twig-sized branches littering the sidewalk. All in all, it doesn’t appear that Dianmu was that much of a big deal here, though other sections of the country in its path may have different stories to tell. It’s been a very slow typhoon season in this neck of the woods so far, but perhaps Dianmu is a precursor to a more active end of the season.
Related posts: - Tropical Storm Dianmu The first named storm of the season to approach this area has been dubbed Dianmu, which, appropriately, is a goddess of lightning and thunder in Chinese mythology. According to Weather...
- Another Dianmu Update So far, according to the KMA website, Yeosu has received nearly an inch of rain (2.1 cm) since midnight. The winds have begun to pick up, and it appears...
- Early Morning Wake Up I’m heading into Santo Domingo with some of the players today so that I can learn how to use the bus system, which is much cheaper than the oh-so-expensive taxi...
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