Weatherman Yao Xuexiang loves typhoons.

"I like to examine the meteorological map of a typhoon, for it is so beautiful, like art," enthused Yao, 40.

The weatherman who entered his profession by complete chance has devoted two decades of his life to a job he now loves.

If you want to spot the eye of a storm, Yao's your man.

"In the centre it is quiet and sunny, yet such a typhoon can destroy everything around it - ships, trees, houses...everything," Yao said. "To gather so much dynamic force all in one, isn't it a marvel of Nature?"

Yao's life is soaked in the weather. Away from work, he seldom entertains himself in outdoor activities instead preferring to read related books on the subject at home.

Surprisingly, for

ecasting was not his first choice: "When I was young, I was amazed by the moon, stars and Outer Space - I thought working in a job related to observing things in the heavens would be interesting," he recalled of his childhood.

The then young Yao had not distinguished celestial phenomena from meteorology. Entering the profession was sheerly by chance.

Indeed Yao was upset when he was recruited to Nanjing Meteorological Institute to major in Dynamic Meteorology. For some reason he thought he might become an astronomer in the then famous Jijinshan (Purple Golden Mountain) Observatory, also located in Nanjing, of Jiangsu Province.

"I was disappointed when I discovered that my future job was not astronomy but to forecast weather, predicting wind or rain," Yao told.

His love for meteorology grew only when he began to work. On graduation in 1983, he was allocated to work as a weatherman in the China Central Meteorological Observatory.

One event totally changed his view of his job.

"Two of my colleagues were sent to observe a storm in Ankang city of Shaanxi Province. What they told me after the trip simply startled me," Yao said.

Weathermen had forecast that the severe storm might result in devastating floods in a couple of days, yet the local populace remained skeptical. "They claimed that there had never been floods in their whole lives living there," Yao said.

The government forced them to leave the town before the flood hit. At times policemen and soldiers entered people's houses to drag them out. Some who had been pulled out kept coming back to take their belongings along, like pigs, sheep and furniture.

Traffic got stuck, and crowds moved like snails. "Finally the night came, and the flood gushed in," recounted Yao. "Quite a few who failed to leave died."

He added: "The tragedy hit hard on my heart. For the first time, I understood how vital my work as a weatherman was," Yao said.

In 20 years' weather forecasting, Yao himself has experienced numerous such happy and sad moments.

He believes his job functions like that of a doctor's: "We both work to save people's lives - we help people avoid disasters, if we forecast right," said Yao, who is now deputy director of China Central Meteorological Observatory.

"Like other weathermen, if I forecast wrong, I feel very sad at the bottom of my heart," Yao admitted.

The more he works, the more he realizes how important his job is. "If we forecast wrong, like if we predict the day to be several degrees warmer or colder, or we predict it is sunny, yet it turns out rainy, we meet with discontent from the public. Yet, we might ignore it as not a very big deal compared with serious mistakes which result in casualties," he reasoned.

Weather forecasting is a job that is filled with challenges, since Nature is so unpredictable.

"Meteorology, although it existed in Aristotle's time, and is called a traditional science, is a comparatively young field of knowledge, which has only developed quickly in the modern age," Yao said.

He calls for understanding of weathermen's work if they happen to make minor mistakes.

"Although backed by fairly advanced facilities now, we cannot guarantee that our weather forecast will be 100 per cent correct, because Nature does not always follow the rules," he pointed out.

Yao does not believe weathermen should issue public apologies for mistakes, arguing that they already face guilt in their own hearts. "Moreover, after each failed forecast, weathermen are asked to learn from the lessons with serious reviews of the cases by the observatory."

Although he admits to loving typhoons as an "art", he also fears them.

"Typhoons are often related to death for humans, and bring much trouble for weathermen's work," he said.

He cited an example of the so-called No 16 typhoon he forecast in 1986.

"From our careful analysis, we forecast that it was to climb onto the mainland at Guangdong Province from the Pacific Ocean, yet it ran instead back to the Pacific," he recalled.

Like a naughty kid, it played the hide and seek game three times with the weathermen, each time failing to live up to the seemingly scientific forecast. "It came three times closer to the continent, yet ran away every time unpredictably."

For over a month, Yao and his colleagues carefully tracked the typhoon by night and by day.

"It was so frustrating to follow its moves," Yao sighed. "Yet I still think that sucha typhoon which rages on the sea without bringing disasters is proof of beauty in Nature."