Wednesday, November 28, 2007 Wenceslao: Fujiwara effect and prayer power By Bong O. Wenceslao Candid Thoughts
FOR days now, I have been bringing with me to the office my umbrella. Rain did seem to fall often lately, especially in our community located at the foot of a hill covered with ipil-ipil and other bushes. What is amusing is that while our place in Minglanilla is wet, Cebu City is dry at times, making me look laughable carrying an umbrella around.
Weather is really fickle. Lando reentered “Philippine area of responsibility” the other day after speeding past Cebu and the Visayas and leaving the country last week, toppling the giant Christmas tree in Fuente Osmeña and shaming Pag-asa people for its erratic behavior. It turned out Mina, which devastated Luzon, pulled Lando back.
It’s called the Fujiwara effect, a phenomenon that Everything2.com described as “kind of like two ice skaters locking arms and spinning in dance together.”
Simply put, it happens when a storm influences the movement of another storm (that’s from Pag-asa Director Prisco Nilo). It only seems to happen when two storms are of the same size.
But why the name? Okay, in 1921, Dr. Sakuhei Fujiwhara (obviously Japanese) wrote a paper about the activity of vortices in water (example, whirlpool). He noticed that if two vortices were identical in size and strength and spin in the same direction, they would rotate around each other. If one of the vortices is bigger, the smaller is “eaten” up.
So there. Mina and Lando got near each other, locked arms and danced, using Luzon as their ballroom. By the way, I think it was Pag-asa Mactan’s Oscar Tabada who used another metaphor in an interview: Lando won’t hit Cebu again kay dili man na siya sakyanan nga nisubay og usa ka dan. Fujiwara or Fujiwhara? Both are acceptable.
Anyway, Lando reminded me not only of Pag-asa’s fumble but also of the billboard fuss. Lest I be misunderstood, I agree that the size of billboards and the manner they are constructed should be regulated. Obviously, I am one with Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña on that. But what was interesting was the one he was silent about.
We were lucky that at the height of the storm the giant Christmas tree fell down inside the Fuente Osmeña rotunda and not outside it. How many vehicles were circling the area at that time? A structure hitting just one of them could have sparked a traffic mess of tragic proportions. There’s a lesson there that should not have been left unsaid.
Meanwhile, I don’t think people who prayed that Mina won’t hit the Bicol region could have gotten a sense of satisfaction considering the devastation suffered by other areas where the typhoon veered to. Bicolanos attributed the erratic behavior of Mina to prayer power. It should not mean, though, that the other regions were less prayerful.
That talk about the power of prayer reminded me of the fuss about the mini drought that hit some parts of Luzon months before. Bishops led prayer sessions seeking God’s intervention for more rainfall. Weeks later, storm after storm hit the country, flooding many areas. It sounded in the end like, be careful what you ask for, although the effect was tragic.
