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HK Observatory: Can you forecast better?

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  1. #21

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    Although I gotta say my first T8 was a big joke, I can't stop thinking about a Dutch football saying: the best ball players always sit on the bench.
    Enjoy a sunny day everyone


  2. #22

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    Quote Originally Posted by Stu79:
    I don't, but my wife has the app. I usually use accuweather or my phone's weather app (don't know who provides the data).

    Regularly my wife will say the weather will be rainy while mine forecasts the opposite or vice versa and I'd say 8/10 I'm right.

    I'll take you up on your challenge too - I'm leaving HK soon until the 27th of July but when I get back I will keep a track of a few sources and just looking out of the window and see which works best. I'm expecting to find the HKO comes off poorly, but we'll see.
    Good to see you can take the challenge.

    Although it may not be raining at your particular spot, but it may be raining at another spot in the city...

    P.S-Do you know where accuweather can there HK forecast from?

  3. #23

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    Most of Guangdong coastal regions follow HKO. Last night the near shore fishing boats were safely anchored and many of the employers that need to workers outdoors, streetside or on the water took sensible precautions. People living in areas with high risk of falling objects likewise took the necessary action as did people with nice rattan patio furniture...

    Perhaps there should be a voluntary dual code system. If you work and live in modern high rises with pretty direct transport links you can go home and log into work via your company VPN, for the rest they can go home and batten down the hatches (and pick-up some instant noodles obviously).

    Last edited by East_coast; 10-07-2015 at 01:30 PM.

  4. #24

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    I mentioned in the other topic on typhoon Linfa that the winds began to decrease to almost nothing after the T8 was issued. A decrease in winds to such an extent after issuing T8 has never happened before as far as I am aware of.

    If we take a look at other typhoons landing to the east of HK, not many of them have brought a number 8 signal. Combined with the "terrain sheltering effect" that they mentioned frequently yesterday, it would require a fairly powerful typhoon to land, say within 150 kilometres east of Hong Kong. Take for example typhoon Usagi, Molave, and Dujuan (2013, 2009 & 2003). All of them landed within 150 kilometres of Hong Kong and two of them were far stronger than Linfa. Molave was comparable in strength but landed much, much closer, therefore weakening far less during her closest approach.

    However, the HKO decided to issue a T8 for a weak typhoon landing around 200 kilometres away from us yesterday. Usagi, Molave and Dujuan all weakened rapidly soon after impacting Hong Kong, yet they still expected Linfa to not weaken significantly yesterday. But she did, and we ended up with a T8 that shouldn't have even been a T3.

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  5. #25

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cho-man:

    P.S-Do you know where accuweather can there HK forecast from?
    No idea, but if they get the data from HKO they do something else with it because the forecasts are different a large part of the time.

  6. #26

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    Hindsight is amazing, isn't it?

    Due to the unpredictable nature of a weather system, you cannot rely on past incidents 100%. Sure, you can gauge what majority of the time will happen, but that does not equate to it will follow the previous patterns all the time. All it takes is one misjudgement, and it'll be lives that are at stake. What if Linfa as it made landfall decide to track directly west and pick up speed?

    The same Linfa typhoon hit Shantou badly, causing deaths, loss of housing, blackouts, etc.

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  7. #27

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    Quote Originally Posted by Proplus:
    Hindsight is amazing, isn't it?

    Due to the unpredictable nature of a weather system, you cannot rely on past incidents 100%. Sure, you can gauge what majority of the time will happen, but that does not equate to it will follow the previous patterns all the time. All it takes is one misjudgement, and it'll be lives that are at stake. What if Linfa as it made landfall decide to track directly west and pick up speed?

    The same Linfa typhoon hit Shantou badly, causing deaths, loss of housing, blackouts, etc.
    The decision to issue T8 was made when Linfa was already showing signs of weakening. Its eye quickly vanished on radar and its structure had deteriorated by 2:40 PM, which is when the HKO announced that T8 would be issued by 5 PM. I understand that given Linfa's speed and proximity to Hong Kong, a west-southwest shift of her track would likely still bring gales to Hong Kong. However, given that Linfa was already inland, it is likely that she would weaken substantially along her way, and therefore bring gales only when she was very close (or right over us). I may be wrong, but I still believe that the T8 was issued too early. Winds in Hong Kong at the time were a minimum T3 at best and not really on an increasing trend.
    Last edited by ma5t3r0fpupp3t5; 10-07-2015 at 02:30 PM.
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  8. #28

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    Quote Originally Posted by ma5t3r0fpupp3t5:
    The decision to issue T8 was made when Linfa was already showing signs of weakening. Its eye quickly vanished on radar and its structure had deteriorated by 2:40 PM, which is when the HKO announced that T8 would be issued by 5 PM. I understand that given Linfa's speed and proximity to Hong Kong, a west-southwest shift of her track would likely still bring gales to Hong Kong. However, given that Linfa was already inland, it is likely that she would weaken substantially along her way, and therefore bring gales only when she was very close (or right over us). I may be wrong, but I still believe that the T8 was issued too early. Winds in Hong Kong at the time were a minimum T3 at best and not really on an increasing trend.
    You could argue that HKO should wait more to see whether Linfa become weaker or stronger, but for how long? People need time to go home, don't them? What if HKO wait and the 'proof' that it definitely will be a proper T8 came late and some people can not go home? Should HKO then say this to them: "Oh, too bad for you, we need to wait to make sure that other people do not get pissed off because of undeserved T8"?
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  9. #29

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    In fact, if you take a look at the HKO's track for Linfa, you'll see that it actually did start tracking west-southwest around the time T8 was issued, but was already weakening significantly and was quite far inland. In fact, the HKO were quite lucky this happened - what if Linfa continued to track west or west-northwest as it did for most of the day, skirting at an even further distance from Hong Kong? That would've been even more pathetic!


  10. #30

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    Quote Originally Posted by mobtrio:
    You could argue that HKO should wait more to see whether Linfa become weaker or stronger, but for how long? People need time to go home, don't them? What if HKO wait and the 'proof' that it definitely will be a proper T8 came late and some people can not go home? Should HKO then say this to them: "Oh, too bad for you, we need to wait to make sure that other people do not get pissed off because of undeserved T8"?
    By the time HKO issued T8 pre-warning, it was already clear that Linfa was weakening substantially. Therefore the commencing of gales would be later due to a smaller gale radius and T8 could theoretically be decided later. Of course, there could be other factors coming into play, but given that a weak typhoon landing at such a far distance to the east hasn't brought a T8 before as far as I know, it should have been quite clear that T8-force winds were going to be unlikely.