Merry Everest, 23, works as a weather girl for TVB. Canadian-born, she moved to Hong Kong two years ago from Victoria, British Columbia. She has worked as an actress and has a degree in physical geography.
What's on your mind? The weather is always on my mind. My goal is not to make it do what I want it to do, but to understand what it does and make adjustments accordingly. For example, today it is cold, so I cannot go swimming. But I can go hiking instead.
How do you feel about the unusual weather patterns we are experiencing? Well, I did say that it was going to be cold. When a new system comes into town it hovers over us and we get affected by it. This one came from the north and made things colder than usual for April, but temperatures are picking up.
Does it depress you having to tell people that their holidays will be ruined by bad weather? All weather is good. I don't feel sorry that I have to tell people that it's cold. Sunny or not, you can still have fun. It is all within the person. Weather forecasting is not a subjective thing. It has got to be objective. Back in the 1950s, the pioneers used to say 'it's going to be rainy, so stay inside', but I don't do that. If someone is planning to go hiking and they hear that it's going to be raining, they should know it's going to be slippery.
What did you do to adapt to the sudden temperature drop? The system before this one was a warm maritime air stream, so I was packing up my winter clothes. But when I saw this one coming, I thought, no - I'm not going to put them away. So I still had my warm clothes ready.
