Typhoon Season 2013

[MovingIn07]

Umm...it was very near. Sorry. 'Poleward' means, ahem, north and 100kms away is a direct hit...a little jog north and an increase in speed to 30km per hour plus a slight increase in intensity and we'd have suddenly been in trouble with certain people in, "millponds", suddenly looking a little bit vulnerable...

"if", "if", "if".

[Trance Omega]

Movingin, you should change your profile location to "millpond"

[dengxi]

A couple of the peeps. from HK Weather Underground managed to get themselves to Yangjiang as UTOR made landfall. The footage you see here is the back wall hitting, they'd already had the eye.

Yangjiang is only around 200kms (by sea) from HK and the conditions you're seeing here were being felt a lot closer than that...Utor did have a few small jogs poleward and much of the day we were only a few hours away from experiencing conditions like this...HKO got it right. Let it go...

Edit: TLDR for the below as after posting I realised it's a ridiculously long essay - I'm not saying HKO were right or wrong, just that (1) it's plausible they weren't 100% right and (2) I'd like to see more of their justification and insight into the risks... especially given the high costs pointed out in the SCMP article.

Nice video - interesting to see all those people out there on the streets despite the bad conditions.

The article on SCMP said that wind speeds of 100km/h shouldn't shut down HK. This article on Accuweather: http://www.accuweather.com/en/weathe...n-phi/16359687 said that the sustained wind speed was around 93km/h at landfall in Yangjiang. It sounds reasonable that we could cope with the wind shown in the video without shutting down the whole of Hong Kong, but I agree this is debatable.

I also agree with you it could easily have been worse, but also with moving that it seems we had a fairly healthy buffer between us and the storm.

Now you apparently don't agree with moving and me, fair enough. You also say that HKO got it right, again fair enough. Despite your "let it go" I didn't actually say they'd got it wrong (at least in my latest post!), and you seem to follow this more closely than I do so I'd probably give you and them the benefit of the doubt.

What I did say I'd like to see, and I think you'd probably be on board with this, is a little more outreach from HKO explaining the risks and actual danger. Even if HKD 4bn is 100 times the actual cost, you could still spend 1% of the cost and get somebody to do some reports that let us know e.g. they put up a T8 because there was a 30% chance that it would speed up and veer right and spin faster and that could have caused abc and xyz damage; and even though that didn't happen we still had 27 fallen trees and the cargo ship down.

If they could publish more of their reasoning it could actually mean people who wanted to go to work but didn't because of the signal could make it in or people who had to work outside could better evaluate the risks. E.g. if what you say is right and it could have hit Hong Kong hard within an hour, someone travelling an hour to work should check the HKO bulletin right before they go, or those guys outside could make sure to check in once an hour to make sure they don't get caught outside even when it seems safe to work.

I admit these ideas aren't that well thought out, but if I were the HKO I'd want to take a bit of leadership and not have the SCMP and random guys on forums like you and me second guessing whether they did it right or not. They could do a lot more to educate the public than just calling a T8 from 0140 to 1340. There's middle ground between "HKO got it 100% right" and "they shouldn't have called a T8 it was a millpond" (not that moving said that, but that's how some people seemed to have interpreted it).

[vmlinuz]

You guys all saw that HKO put up a blog post discussing how they make the decision about when to put up and take down a signal, right?

I mean, you all follow HKO's blog, I assume...

[dengxi]

You guys all saw that HKO put up a blog post discussing how they make the decision about when to put up and take down a signal, right?

I mean, you all follow HKO's blog, I assume...

Hah so that makes my long blurb a bit redundant. Funny that they're kind of admitting they didn't quite get it right without actually saying that. This is exactly what I'm talking about, although even more detail would be good. Plus a better website design so their blog is actually a bit more visible. The previous entry on crepuscular rays is actually quite interesting. Then we'd just need them to come on geo and we'd be done.

I'd also like to see a bit of debate on the point in the SCMP on whether everything needs to shut down for 100km/hr winds.

[INXS]

Hah so that makes my long blurb a bit redundant. Funny that they're kind of admitting they didn't quite get it right without actually saying that. This is exactly what I'm talking about, although even more detail would be good. Plus a better website design so their blog is actually a bit more visible. The previous entry on crepuscular rays is actually quite interesting. Then we'd just need them to come on geo and we'd be done.

I'd also like to see a bit of debate on the point in the SCMP on whether everything needs to shut down for 100km/hr winds.

We're reading a different blog. Exactly where are HKO admitting they didn't get it right?

Asking them for more information is fair enough, second guessing one of the most respected observatories in the world is another...

As for debate about shutting things down...do you think there would be any more casualties if, say, a few million more people had been wandering about on Wednesday?

I agree with you that HKO probably didn't get it 100% right, (it's weather you know...), but somewhere halfway between Min07's 'millpond' verdict and theirs? Come on...

As for economic loss, even I as a tiny business factor in a few T8s over summer in my budget....You might as well talk about the economic cost of red days.....in fact, I believe it's ridiculous how many red days HK has.....cutting half of those out would be better than risking people's lives during typhoons....

[closedcasket]

Hah so that makes my long blurb a bit redundant. Funny that they're kind of admitting they didn't quite get it right without actually saying that. This is exactly what I'm talking about, although even more detail would be good. Plus a better website design so their blog is actually a bit more visible. The previous entry on crepuscular rays is actually quite interesting. Then we'd just need them to come on geo and we'd be done.

I'd also like to see a bit of debate on the point in the SCMP on whether everything needs to shut down for 100km/hr winds.

Agreed. Admittedly I haven't gone back and read the entire thread. I can imagine it is filled with dozens of snarky posts by INXS fighting for more days off of work.

But generally speaking, I agree that certain jobs could work in certain conditions. Just because a crane operator can't work, doesn't mean office workers shouldn't.

Furthermore, why can't people with desk jobs work from home?

This city has the collective attitude that I did as a child growing up in northern US praying for a "snow day". I sometimes wonder if the overall objective of the typhoon warning system is safety or getting us all out of work. Last week was a prime example.

[INXS]

Admittedly I haven't gone back and read the entire thread. I can imagine it is filled with dozens of snarky posts by INXS fighting for more days off of work.

Not likely. I'm self-employed and an employer.

[INXS]

I can imagine it is filled with dozens of snarky posts by INXS fighting for more days off of work.

Well there's no accounting for what goes on in your head most of the time...

But generally speaking, I agree that certain jobs could work in certain conditions. Just because a crane operator can't work, doesn't mean office workers shouldn't.

The family of the office worker who gets a loose tile embedded in his head can come and see you for compensation?

Furthermore, why can't people with desk jobs work from home?

Yes.....errrmm, why can't they? You know something we don't?

This city has the collective attitude that I did as a child growing up in northern US praying for a "snow day".

Errrm....no it doesn't. The lazy bastards on Geoexpat have that collective attitude. For most people in HK it's not welcome. Even a T3 is a huge disruption for parents with kindergarten children. Employers hate them and they cause a lot of damage.

I sometimes wonder if the overall objective of the typhoon warning system is safety or getting us all out of work.

You'd be the only one. Most HKers believe the opposite but that the HKO is too cautious.

Last week was a prime example.

What happened last week?

The only example here is another of you spouting an ill-informed opinion on a subject you clearly know very little about......I'm guessing this won't stop you from digging in for a few pages anyway CC....

[MovingIn07]

Edit: TLDR for the below as after posting I realised it's a ridiculously long essay - I'm not saying HKO were right or wrong, just that (1) it's plausible they weren't 100% right and (2) I'd like to see more of their justification and insight into the risks... especially given the high costs pointed out in the SCMP article.

Nice video - interesting to see all those people out there on the streets despite the bad conditions.

The article on SCMP said that wind speeds of 100km/h shouldn't shut down HK. This article on Accuweather: http://www.accuweather.com/en/weathe...n-phi/16359687 said that the sustained wind speed was around 93km/h at landfall in Yangjiang. It sounds reasonable that we could cope with the wind shown in the video without shutting down the whole of Hong Kong, but I agree this is debatable.

I also agree with you it could easily have been worse, but also with moving that it seems we had a fairly healthy buffer between us and the storm.

Now you apparently don't agree with moving and me, fair enough. You also say that HKO got it right, again fair enough. Despite your "let it go" I didn't actually say they'd got it wrong (at least in my latest post!), and you seem to follow this more closely than I do so I'd probably give you and them the benefit of the doubt.

What I did say I'd like to see, and I think you'd probably be on board with this, is a little more outreach from HKO explaining the risks and actual danger. Even if HKD 4bn is 100 times the actual cost, you could still spend 1% of the cost and get somebody to do some reports that let us know e.g. they put up a T8 because there was a 30% chance that it would speed up and veer right and spin faster and that could have caused abc and xyz damage; and even though that didn't happen we still had 27 fallen trees and the cargo ship down.

If they could publish more of their reasoning it could actually mean people who wanted to go to work but didn't because of the signal could make it in or people who had to work outside could better evaluate the risks. E.g. if what you say is right and it could have hit Hong Kong hard within an hour, someone travelling an hour to work should check the HKO bulletin right before they go, or those guys outside could make sure to check in once an hour to make sure they don't get caught outside even when it seems safe to work.

I admit these ideas aren't that well thought out, but if I were the HKO I'd want to take a bit of leadership and not have the SCMP and random guys on forums like you and me second guessing whether they did it right or not. They could do a lot more to educate the public than just calling a T8 from 0140 to 1340. There's middle ground between "HKO got it 100% right" and "they shouldn't have called a T8 it was a millpond" (not that moving said that, but that's how some people seemed to have interpreted it).

Nice reasoned post.

And, just to put the record straight, I never said "it's a millpond here so it is everywhere" but I responded to about 3 other earlier posts saying "it's fine here"; "it's fine here but it could be worse in the NT".... so being in the NT I supplied the data from here!

Since I live on a boat, and we generally get it worse than most of you living in safe, secure high rises, I tend to err on the side of caution and support the HKO when they make these decisions. I also know exactly how strong it is here because every time a gust of strong wind hits the boat we move! BUT, based on 6 typhoon seasons now, including a T10 and a T9 which damaged the jetty and several boats in the marina, THIS TIME it does seem like a little TOO much caution was in place. So far, nobody (to my knowledge) has said that where they was was really bad DURING THE T8, IN HONG KONG. (sure, you've quoted China and Macau and said a ship went down "off the coast of Lantau ... " without saying how far off the coast). And it was certainly worse weather here in the hours following the T8 and the next night!

I agree with Dengxi - in this day and age, something a little more refined would be helpful with those of us making decisions about whether or not our staff should come into work. Allowing those of us with office staff in a office attached to an MTR station where none drive and only one catches a bus, to perhaps make different decisions to folks with staff working on the outside of a high rise, for example.

Debate is good and healthy. Unfortunately this site seems to be losing it's ability to DEBATE rather than insult.