A windy day off in HK

I'm writing this post in the middle of a severe typhoon which is passing by Hong Kong and is expected to make landfall near Yangjiang over the western coast of Guangdong, China later today. Since the No. 8 Southeast Gale or Storm Signal is in force, I didn't have to go into work! Surprisingly even though a No. 8 tropical cyclone warning is hoisted, the weather doesn't seem all that bad. The doors were banging a bit late last night and I could the loud gusts of windy in the early morning. The maximum wind gusts varies quite a bit across Hong Kong (47 km/h in TKO but 78 km/h out in Cheung Chau) But the sun has been peaking out from behind the clouds periodically throughout the morning and mid-afternoon.

I guess the severe winds and unstable weather makes it a potentially dangerous to be outdoors and/or commuting.

One minute it's calm the next it's pouring rain.

Looking in the direction of the Tseung Kwan O Stadium and Popcorn Mall in TKO, Hong Kong (Photo: CathC)

The unpredictable weather during a tropical cyclone--heavy rain and fog 15 minutes after the photo above was taken (Photo: CathC)

The roads were quite empty today, as most people heed the government warnings to stay home/indoors. Buses and minibuses are out of service, but the MTR and some taxis are still operating.


The Hong Kong Observatory provides quite a bit of important about this Severe Typhoon Utor and you can track the path here on their website. You can see from this map, predicting the path of typhoons is actually a very challenging task. The path can change rapidly and veer off course. Here's the good animation from the Hong Kong Observatory of how quickly the weather changes as seen at Victoria Harbour.

But to put things in perspective, not everyone has a day off because of the tropical cyclone warning. Most of the restaurants in the local malls and plazas are actually still open. So I'm pretty lucky that even though there's a storm outside, there's still plenty of food options--so time to head downstairs for lunch...