'Clothesline' shock leads to meteorology career

Meng Zhiyong is one of the 10 winners of 2013 the China Young Women in Science Fellowship. Wang Jing / China Daily

Meng Zhiyong, a meteorologist at Peking University, recently added one more honor to her list of achievements.

The 44-year-old was awarded a China Young Women in Science Fellowship in December 2013. The award is to honor excellent women scientists in the country, as part of the For Women in Science program to highlight the important contributions made by women to scientific progress, started by L'Oreal and UNESCO in 1998.

"I was very honored when I was told that I was one of the 10 winners of the award," Meng says.

"It is recognition of my work from the science community and the government."

Meng enrolled in Peking University in 1987 to study Meteorology, obtained her doctorate degree from Texas A&M University in 2007 and did postdoctoral research there for one year.

She then returned to China in 2008 to work at Peking University under the One Hundred Talents Program, a university plan to attract elite researchers working overseas.

Her research interests focus on the dynamics and predictability of severe convective systems, tropical cyclones, ensemble-based data assimilation and numerical weather prediction, which uses mathematical models of the atmosphere and oceans to predict the weather based on current conditions.

In 2012, she confirmed the occurrence of a tornado in Beijing during a heavy rainfall event through detailed damage surveys and radar analyses.

On July 21, 2012, a catastrophic rainfall hit Beijing, leaving 79 people dead and causing widespread damage to buildings, infrastructure and crops.

Data from the Beijing Meteorological Bureau later showed that the 24-hour precipitation in urban areas was as high as 190.5 millimeters. Rainfall reached 460 mm in the hardest-hit suburbs.

Although the meteorological bureau had predicted the rainfall, the starting time it predicted was about six hours later than the actual time, and it also failed to correctly estimate the rainfall magnitude.