Typhoons and me In one of my previous essays I claimed myself to be an expert on typhoons. All my knowledge about typhoons I did not get from books or teachers, but from my several decades of personal encounter with them. Hurricanes or typhoons (a more general term is tropical cyclone) are part of our life here in Hong Kong. In this part of the world tropical cyclones usually originate over the West Pacific Ocean or the South China Sea. The places hit by tropical cyclones in descending order of frequency are the Philippines, Taiwan, Hainan Island, Japan, coastal cities of Southern China and Vietnam. In term of strength tropical cyclones can be graded from weak to strong in the following order: tropical depression, tropical cyclone, severe tropical cyclone, typhoon, strong typhoon. Strong wind is not strong Strengths of wind are classified from weak to strong as: strong wind, gale, storm, etc. So, tropical cyclones with only strong wind is the least strong and is called a tropical depression. Paths of tropical cyclones Knowing the paths of tropical cyclones is the most important thing. Their paths are influenced by the following factors: 1. They usually move in a westerly or a northwesterly direction 2. When they meet the northeast monsoon they will turn to a northerly or even northeasterly direction 3. If there are more than one tropical cyclones at the same time, they tend to attract each other so that their paths will change accordingly When will Hong Kong suffer the most? Hong Kong will suffer the most if a tropical cyclone approaches Hong Kong from the south because the south of Hong Kong is the sea. If tropical cyclones come from a path less than 90 degree with the coast they will be weakened a bit before they hit Hong Kong. Hong Kong will be less affected if the tropical cyclones land somewhere east of Hong Kong than if they land somewhere west of Hong Kong. This is because of the direction of the wind. A tropical cyclone landing somewhere east of Hong Kong will bring northwest wind which is the wind coming from the mainland. If the tropical cyclone lands somewhere west of Hong Kong, the wind will come from the southeast where there is the sea.
Posted on: Sat, 29 Jun 2013 06:19:05 +0000
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