Sunday, August 24, 2003  

That little symbol up there signifies that Typhoon Signal #3 is now in effect for Hong Kong, meaning that we're expecting high winds from Typhoon Krovahn (it's apparently a Cambodian name) to hit the city over the next few hours. Signal #3 generally isn't serious enough to properly disrupt life here, but ferry services are usually iffy and some flights are diverted. For the rest of us, it's a sign that a typhoon is approaching and to expect a LOT of rain.

I love typhoons. Living in Hong Kong, we're rather lucky. Thanks to a wall of mountains sheltering the harbour and surrounding lowlands where the majority of the population lives, as well as years of proper government planning and preparation for events like this, even direct hits cause minimal damage. In the last five years, less than 20 people have been killed by typhoons. It's not totally safe, of course, and you have to take precautions (it might sound obvious, but walking around when the wind is whipping up debris and loose objects is never smart, and nor is fooling around in areas liable to flood), but in general it's probably one of the safer places to observe strong tropical storms blowing in. So my dad and I used to head off in the middle of the night to drive around and observe any storm damage in the city, gauge how strong the winds are, check out the harbour conditions and generally cruise around. That and typhoons used to close schools (duh), so any kid would look forward to their imminent arrival!

Having said that, it doesn't look like Typhoon Krovahn will provide for any interesting conditions at all. It'll pass more than 300 kilometres away from Hong Kong (barring any super-dramatic shift) and signal #3 is probably the highest we'll get. Incidentally, the Typhoon Signals are #1 (early warning), #3 (strong winds), #8 (gale/storm-force winds), #9 (winds expected to increase significantly -- only used as a precursor to...) and #10 (hurricane-force winds), the signal for a direct hit. There have only been two of those in my lifetime, and one of them came two days after I left for London.

Liverpool play tonight! Go Liverpool!

Posted at 6:48 PM

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