He was addressing a session focusing on early warnings of dangerous weather phenomena.

The country now has 170 manual surface meteorological stations used to collect data like air temperature and relative humidity, five radar stations and five air sensing stations, Tang said.

Other countries in the Southeast Asian region like Malaysia have up to 369 surface meteorological stations operating partly or fully automatically, 10 air sensing and eight radar stations, he noted.

Worse still, Vietnam now lacks experienced forecasters, Tang said.

It’s hard to keep qualified people for a long time and harder to recruit new ones with good skills as salaries offered are too low, NCHMF vice Director Tran Van Sap said.

These shortcomings make it quite a challenge for Vietnam to anticipate storms’ orbit within 24 hours, especially those with complicated directions, Tang said.

The country is also unable to give early and exact warnings about great floods due to weak forecasting of rainfall, added Bui Duc Long, head of the Center for Flood Forecasting covering the central, central highlands and southern regions.

In an effort to enhance the national meteorological forecasting capacity, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment is drawing up a VND1.3 trillion (US$72.87 million) plan to set up advanced stations and equipment plus a hi-end technological center of hydro-meteorology between 2010 and 2012.

The plan will be submitted to the government for approval, but no details were released about the time frames involved.

Storm Mirinae

In related news, storm Mirinae, strengthening from a tropical low off the Island of Guam on Tuesday, is heading for the East Sea at the speed of 25 kilometers per hour, according to a Japanese meteorological agency.

Most international meteorological centers expected the storm will enter the sea on Sunday morning at the latest.

According to Le Thi Xuan Lan of the Southern Hydrometeorology Station, once the storm goes into the East Sea, it will influence Vietnam’s central and southern regions.

Since late last month, the country has been hit by two typhoons, Parma and Ketsana, bringing torrential rains and floods killing at least 163 people and causing losses of trillions of dongs to the central and northern regions.