Phet coming to Karachi? What the Media is feeding us

In the wake of Phet, the North Indian Tropical Storm that transformed into a Category 4 Cyclone when it pounded the shores of Oman, Pakistani media went crazy, as usual.

Quoting DG Meteorological Department Qamaruz Zaman Chaudhry, who is either misquoted or clearly not updated on his subject, media has sensationalized the possibility of Karachi being hit by Phet. Even today, it is projected on both the TV and Newspaper websites that Phet is coming for Karachi, which is incorrect as per forecasts based on satellite imagery.

phet coming to karachi

From the forecast it is very much evident that Karachi is nowhere in the path of Phet and the cyclone would scale down to a Tropical Depression while passing Shahbandar / Thatta on its way to India.

tropical storm tracker

In this day and age, when access to information is no issue, it is really ironic how public is taking for a ride by media people.

Images: Tropical Storm Risk


5 thoughts on “Phet coming to Karachi? What the Media is feeding us”

  1. @kashif aziz
    dear kashif if u see the picture which u have shown than u can see that there were only two points where cyclone could hit one is karachi and other one is shahbandar so met dptt was not saying that they are 100% sure that cyclone will hit karachi they were saying it could hit karachi as well as i heard and other thing which you are trying to say that Mr. qamar is a person who is never updated so m agree with you 110% and the other thing which relates to media so our media always shouts alot and they really dont have sens that what and when to announce they just working to earn money not to aware people………….
    any how i really appreciate your efforts you are doing well continue your work

    Reply
  2. @Haider: Met Dept and the Media were all set for Phet striking Karachi till Sunday evening. Later they said that it has skipped Karachi. I wrote this post much earlier in the day. Also, in my previous post, I have mentioned that Phet would scale down to Tropical Storm which is not as sinister as a Cyclone.

    My observations on Phet can be checked at (with time lines, of course):

    http://tinyurl.com/23t9y6z
    http://tinyurl.com/23n4k79
    http://tinyurl.com/2f6zmw5

    Reply
  3. How did Phet cause so much damage to Gwadar despite being so far away? I think it was much closer to Gawadar than what appears from the picture. It hit Bhambhore, which is only about 50 kilometers from Karachi along the coast, which means that the Met department was not far wrong in predicting that it could hit Karachi.

    Reply

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