Via the South China Morning Post: Super Typhoon Mangkhut: Hong Kong ramps up preparations, with clearer picture of storm’s direction possible by Friday. Excerpt:
Hong Kong will have a clearer idea by Friday at the earliest whether it will face the full force of Super Typhoon Mangkhut this weekend.
As of Thursday night, forecasters in the city and around the region were watching the storm’s every change of direction for signs of the impact it might have. For Hong Kong, much depended on how Mangkhut made its way across the Philippines and its most populous island, Luzon.
Equivalent to a category 5 Atlantic hurricane – the highest on a five-tier wind scale for tropical cyclones – Mangkhut was hurtling towards the northern Philippines on Thursday night, looming about 850km (528 miles) from its capital by 8pm.
Packing winds of 240km/h (149mph), it was forecast to smash through Luzon as early as Saturday morning, even affecting Manila, before heading to China’s densely populated Guangdong province and skirting by Hong Kong.
But with the storm changing direction slightly to head west-northwest, the Hong Kong Observatory suggested it would come within about 200km (124 miles) of the city on Sunday evening, a wider berth than Wednesday’s forecast of 80km (50 miles).
“There are still a lot of uncertainties. We will be able to get a more accurate forecast after it passes Luzon,” the Observatory’s senior scientific officer, Olivia Lee Shuk-ming, said.
Clarence Fong Chi-kong, a meteorologist at the Macau-based ESCAP/WMO Typhoon Committee, said on Thursday afternoon that Mangkhut appeared to be taking “a more westerly path than forecast and it may hit Luzon and weaken."
“While a storm is crossing Luzon, it is possible that it will turn more westerly … some storms will recover from the deflection after entering the South China Sea, but some may not,” he said.
Lee warned Hongkongers to expect “significant deterioration” in weather on Sunday, with gusty winds and more than 100mm of rain.
