KOTA KINABALU: Typhoons are unlikely to happen and waterspout incidence, a phenomenon more likely to happen in the state, is low, said Sabah Meteorological Department director Abdul Malek Tussin revealed this when contacted yesterday.
“The difference between Sabah and the peninsula is the topography of the land. For example, in Kedah there is a vast paddy field area, which is flat and in Sabah the areas are surrounded by hills.
“Typhoons usually occur on flat surfaces, so this phenomenon would unlikely happen in Sabah but waterspouts could happen since the state is surrounded by the sea,” said Abdul Malek.
“These phenomena also usually occurs around the October to November inter-monsoon season, which is ending between a week to two weeks’ time somewhere in mid-November.
“So the chances of waterspouts occurrences, which happens mostly in Kudat and other west coast areas in Sabah, are again low,” he added.
“There is still a chance that the phenomenon could happen here based on factors like the unpredictable weather and the Typhoon Nuri which is currently happening in the Philippines.
“But the typhoon is heading towards Japan,” said Abdul Malek.
On the typhoon development in Peninsular Malaysia, Abdul Malek revealed that the Meteorological Department’s headquarters in Kuala Lumpur is currently trying to collect data to ascertain the reason behind the recent occurrences there.
“We do not know the reason behind the occurrence over in Peninsular Malaysia yet. Only recently has this ever happened over there,” said Abdul Malek, who also added that the phenomenon is considered as small-scale.