Outstanding HKO officers commended by the Director (2006)

Ms LAM is commended for her devotion and efforts in developing a new version of the tropical cyclone Information system (TIPS). In the development of TIPS-2 to replace an earlier and obsolete TIPS-1, she applied her excellent and up-to-date knowledge in IT and programming to realize these complex data ingestion and display algorithms. The project was completed on schedule and the beta version of TIPS-2 was launched for testing in 2005. Ms LAM enhanced and refined the software from comments received and finally the operational version was implemented successfully for use in the 2006 typhoon season. Comments from forecasters and other users were all favourable.

Mr. CHAN was commended for his devotion and efforts in the provision of a professional service to the MTR Corporation Limited to advise on the credible operation of the wind sensors of Ngong Ping 360. Throughout the project, Mr. CHAN stroke an excellent balance between maintaining the Observatory's professional image and the need for the report to provide pragmatic suggestions for Ngong Ping 360 to operate in a safe manner. This was an exceptional achievement given the public concerns on the safe operation of cable cars, highly visible media coverage, and immense pressure for the project to be completed in a very short time frame.

Mr. KWOK was commended for his consistent excellent service and performance. Mr. KWOK was alert and responsible in carrying out his patrolling duties. He recorded in detail the degree of damage to buildings and facilities and reported as soon as possible to his supervisor for repair, keeping a close watch on the repair and maintenance work in progress. Besides, he helped monitor the weekly cleaning work provided by the private contractors alone and assisted in looking after the tours of visitors led by the library staff. He was full of initiative, possessing strong sense of responsibility and was diligent. He was highly efficient. He was commended for his outstanding performance.

Mr. LO was commended for his consistent excellent service and performance. Mr. LO was a person with good conduct and behavior. He was also friendly and easy-going. Regardless of patrol or guard-post duties, he was always on the alert. He exerted himself in his performance of duties. He obeyed and followed the instructions of his supervisors in his assignments and was willing to perform duties not relating to estate management work, for instance, measuring and recording weather data, cleaning the utensils like evaporation pan, rain gauge etc. He set high standards for himself. His positive and responsible manner, co-operative attitude and reliability deserved commendation.

Mr. CHEUNG was commended for his consistent excellent service and performance. Mr. CHEUNG was friendly, cooperative, and keen about his work. He was a self-disciplined person with initiative, possessing good knowledge of the HKO environment. He never complained about additional work assigned to him and performed the assignments diligently with a smile on his face. He was indeed a worker on whom one can rely. Lately, recycle bins were placed in the HKO Compound. Although he was not assigned the duty of keeping an eye on the recycle bins, out of his own initiative, he checked from time to time the recycle bins and took appropriate actions. He worked wholeheartedly even in small matters quietly, never expecting return or acknowledgement. He was liked and well respected by his colleagues of all levels.

Mr. LO was commended for his consistent excellent service and performance. Mr. LO was a hardworking officer possessing good team spirit. He volunteered his service to colleagues in need but would complete his work single-handedly without asking for help if he could manage them alone. Although he was not assigned the role of a gardener, out of his own initiative, he took good care of the plants and trees in the HKO Compound. Apart from watering the vegetation, he would move the pot plants to suitable locations under the sun so that they grow healthily. His efforts improved the outlook of HKO. He was a good staff member with positive working attitude.

Ms Shum was commended for her substantive contributions to the Department's short range climate forecast initiatives and her devotion and efforts in raising HKO's image in the international modeling and hydrological communities. Displaying a unique combination of energy and software and hardware skills, Ms. Shum was instrumental in making possible the launching of HKO's dynamical 12-week seasonal forecasts on the Internet in March 2006. She adapted the regional climate model from the experimental climate prediction Centre (ECPC) of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Visitors from ECPC were all impressed by her ability and commitment, and in turn by the Observatory's commitment in taking forward seasonal forecasting using the ECPC's regional climate model.

Mr. TAM was commended for his work relating to the development of the Heat Stress Measurement System. Mr. TAM led a team to develop the Heat Stress Measurement System within several months, setting the ground for weather observations for the 2008 Olympic Equestrian Events. With the full support of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, he designed a set of reliable and practical Heat Stress Measurement System meeting the requirements of ISO and the World Meteorological Organization. This System provides all necessary weather data for the equestrian events, enhances the image of the HKO and sets the foundations for a new service on providing a heat stress index to the public.

Mr. LEE was commended for his studies on the UV index, the nowcasting of heavy rain and his efforts towards cultivation of talents in the tertiary education field. He had guided the student to successfully come up with a method for forecasting the UV index on clear sky days, laying sound bases for the UV Index forecasting techniques. Moreover, by making use of the lightning data for the prediction of heavy rains, he drew up some parameters of lightning that are correlated to heavy rains, again laying important bases for nowcasting of heavy rain in future. In these studies, he has promoted the co-operation of HKO with the local university, brought learning opportunities for the younger generations and at the same time enhanced the social image of HKO.

Mr. WONG was commended for his efforts in applying new techniques to enhance the performance of the lightning location display. In 2006, Mr. WONG successfully built in various geographical parameters onto the lightning location plan with the technique of the Geographic Information System, facilitating the public to identify the locations of lightning. Moreover, he superimposed the rainfall distribution map onto the lightning location plan, thereby enabling the public to grasp the locations of the lightning in the rain zones. With these additional features, the lightning location plan attracted massive positive feedback. When the new web-page was displayed in the Information and Technology House in the Hong Kong Spring Electronic Products Exhibition hosted by the Hong Kong Trade Development Council in April 2006, Mr. WONG demonstrated himself how HKO apply the latest technology to enhance its service on weather forecast to the public. He was given positive response by the visitors to the exhibition.

Mr. KWOK was commended for his devotion and efforts in the Replacement MINDS and GDISPLAY project. Mr. KWOK had been functioning as a key and leading role in managing a team of system analysts and programmers. He had strong project management capability and often kept project below the original budget. Under his supervision, no major deadline had been missed and new MINDS and GDISPLAY were expected to be launched early 2007.

Mr. NG, Ms CHAN, Ms CHIU, Mr. CHOI and Mr. CHAN are commended for their devotion and effort in the enhancement and maintenance of the Hong Kong Observatory website project. The team succeeded in keeping the HKO website updated with the latest technology to effectively deliver latest weather information, forecasts and warnings to the public as well as special user groups. Because of their good work, the HKO website has won many local and international awards during the past few years, including the "Web Care Awards", the "Business Websites of the Year Award 1999" and "My Favourable Website Awards".

Mr. NG, Ms CHAN, Mr. LI, Ms CHIU and Mr. CHAN are commended for their devotion and effort in the development and maintenance of the World Weather Information Service (WWIS) and Severe Weather Information Centre (SWIC) website project of the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO). As a result of the team's efforts, the WWIS and SWIC websites were successfully launched in 2001 and became fully operational in 2005. The domain name of WWIS and SWIC websites were changed to worldweather.wmo.int and severe.worldweather.wmo.int respectively on 23 March 2006 to identify these websites as part of WMO which is a specialized agency of the United Nations.

Mr. LAU was commended for his devotion and effort in restoring the PCs at the Airport Meteorological Office (AMO) infected by a computer virus in August 2006. In combating the virus, Mr. LAU demonstrated high level of professionalism in locating and isolating PCs and rebuilding them in very short times. With good knowledge of the systems at AMO, their functions and clients served, he provided valuable advice on the recovery procedures such that the whole incident had caused minimal impact to the Air Traffic Control and completely transparent to airline users. Throughout the incident, he had demonstrated his knowledge on IT systems, his willingness to serve the public and to protect the creditability of the Department.

>Mr. LEUNG, Mr. LEE, Mr. CHENG and Mr. LEUNG came to work for the HKO during the period from 1994 to 1995 and have since been providing safe and reliable transportation service to staff of HKO. Positive, devoted to work and responsible, they placed high priority to the needs of the Department so that the departmental operation had been smooth. Apart from excellent driving skills, prudence at work, they were also familiar with the routes and road condition. Their driving duties were completed with high efficiency. Their polite and caring manner, the tidiness of the car and the good maintenance of the engines enables the passengers to enjoy a safe and pleasant journey. Moreover, they were ready to serve on call or standby for overtime work. They worked with cooperation. Even on holidays or in small hours of the day, regardless of inclement weather like thunderstorm or rain, they were ready to report for duty anytime to provide transportation service. Their excellent working attitude and service performance deserved applause.

Mr. LEUNG, Mr. SIN, Mr. YEUNG, Mr. NG and Mr. SIU, under the leadership of their supervisor and with the support of the Polytechnic University, designed a set of reliable and practical Heat Stress Measurement System meeting the requirements of ISO and the World Meteorological Organization. Mr. LEUNG and Mr. YEUNG, applying the new technology in data processing, reduced the size of the System and its energy consumption, making the System easy to carry and install. They also made use of the General Packet Radio Service(GPRS) data transmission technology to provide one-stop data transmission from remote areas without land lines back to the Observatory Headquarters 24 hours round the clock. With Mr. SIN's creative idea and Mr. NG and Mr. SIU's craftsmanship, this easy-to-assemble low cost system was made possible with ordinary materials. This System provides all necessary weather data for the equestrian events, enhances the image of the HKO and sets the foundations for a new service on providing a heat stress index to the public.

Mr. FUNG was given a Letter of Appreciation for his effort and contribution to the development of upper-air sounding operation. Mr. FUNG had been actively contributing to the development of the upper-air sounding system in the HKO - from manual operation to automatic sounding as well as the upgrade to use a new series of radiosonde. Besides, he successfully developed a web page indicating the number of ascent and data disseminating time of each sounding operation. This greatly facilitated the monitoring of the performance of the ascents.

Ms. YEUNG was given a Letter of Appreciation for all her devotion and support to the training courses arranged for colleagues and for the public. She provided very good support to the organization of training courses and the administration of training matters. She was the first among Scientific Assistant grade colleagues to write for the HKO's public "Educational Resources" webpage. These articles have been incorporated in the "Weather Observation" courses, which proved to be immensely popular among the public. She set up a very good example and precedence for fellow grade officer.

Ms YEUNG, Ms CHIU and Ms LEUNG are given a letter of appreciation for all their devotion and effort in development themselves professionally. In 2006, they made a bid step and participated in the outreach activities of the HKO to interact directly with the public in addition to their normal duties. They were the three lecturers of the popular course on "weather observation". The reviewed the course by themselves and enriched the content with "weather folklore". They set a very good example to the fellow officers of their grade by demonstrating their capability of conducting popular courses and interacting directly with the public.