What are the characteristics of a Sumatra squall? How often does it occur and how bad can it get? CNA speaks to weather experts.
What is this weather phenomenon and how often does it happen?A squall is simply a sudden burst of strong winds that are accompanied by heavy rain. It is brief but intense, and it can die down as quickly as it started.
"Squall lines are mesoscale weather systems and can be hundreds of kilometres long but are typically only a few tens of kilometres wide and tend to pass quickly," said Professor Matthias Roth from the National University of Singapore’s geography department. "The southwesterly winds are forced to ascend over the Bukit Barisan mountain range, generating linear-shaped convection systems that propagate across the Malacca Strait toward the Malaysian Peninsula."According to a 2020 report by the Meteorological Service Singapore, the country experiences 45 squalls per year on average.
According to Dr Wang, a five-minute rainfall totalling 11.4mm and an instantaneous wind speed of 26.3m per second were recorded.Video taken by a CNA reader shows strong winds blowing at Bishan Central on Sep 17, 2024., which acted as a “pump” by amplifying the southwesterly winds, Dr Wang said. "Satellite images show that yesterday evening there was a presence of strong convective clouds from the eastern Indian Ocean to the Philippines, which might have a strong role in the duration of storms and rains," he said.
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