Severe Tropical Storm Nari

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In title lines of NWP systems, [NAME] means PAGASA name, (nnW) indicates JTWC No, and {nnnn} indicates JMA No.
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2002-10-03

Typhoon Signal 1 was hoisted 16:45 on 19th September 2001.
Typhoon Signal 3 was hoisted 14:45 on 20th September 2001.
All Typhoon Signals were lowered at 22:40 on 20th September 2001.

At 15:00 on 20th, it has become so dark outside that the street lights have come on and the cars need their headlights on. It's now raining steadily and I can see that the wind is picking up. I am about to go out into the storm for several hours, so will report back later.

Earlier in the day HKO were calling Nari a STS but I see on their latest
report that they are saying it has weakened into a TD. It's
currently 90km North of here. We are getting well and truly drenched.
Typhoon Signal 3 (Strong Winds signal) was hoisted at 14:45 HKT today,
but I haven't seen any evidence of strong winds yet and will be surprised
if I do.
About 15:00 the rain bands came over and it became so dark that the
(automatic) street lighting came on and all cars and buses were using
their headlamps. It has been raining almost non-stop since, but it is a
vertically downward falling rain, not a windy storm.
I looked up at the mountains at 17:22 and saw a very intense but very
short in length CG lightning stroke between a cloud and the mountain - it
looked as wide as it was long. Most unusual.
I drove from Fo Tan to Sai Kung at 17:30 to 18:00 and there was minor
flooding but no lightning. As we had dinner outside under an awning,
there was some bright lightning and noisy thunder but only about one
stroke every two or three minutes.
As we drove back to Sha Tin, there was more minor flooding and lightning
at about the same rate but still no wind. There was evidence of some
minor fender-benders which might be blamed on the storm but I see no sign
of other damage and don't really expect to hear of any.
There will be a risk of landslides after all this rain, I suppose, but
Nari's visit is really almost a non-event.
I shall keep my eyes and ears open for other reports.
===============================

Dear Gary and all,

HKO kept Nari as a tropical storm from 09/1703 to 09/1921, upgraded it to a
STS at 09/2000, then downgraded it to a TS again six hrs later.

Another discrepancy----
The track maps from the various agencies didn't agree well after Nari's
landfall in Taiwan.
Please reffer to the attachment.

Best regards,
HCl

>From: "Gary Padgett"
>To: "[edited]
>Subject: Nari----TS or TD???
>Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 07:00:49 -0500
>
>Well, again we have a major discrepancy between JMA and other
>centres. JTWC and NMCC had elevated Nari back to STS status
>with 55 and 60 kt winds, respectively. Sat estimates from AFWA
>also were hanging in at T3.5----55 kts. While JMA demoted
>Nari to the summary portion of the Warning and Summary bulletin,
>which implies 25 kts or less. The storm clearly re-intensified.
>
>I couldn't locate HKO's warnings to see how they were classifying
>it. Phil????
>
>Any obs any of you might glean would be appreciated.
CWB.gif (23582 bytes)

From CWB

GDMC(sub-angency%20of%20NMCC).gif (28001 bytes)

From GDMC (sub-agency of NMCC)

HKO.gif (16839 bytes)

From HKO

SMA(Macau).gif (61764 bytes)

From SMA (Macau)

JTWC.gif (22010 bytes)

From JTWC

Thanks to Huang Chun Liang for gathering all these track maps.

The main feature of this TC has been rainfall. See below the chart from the HKO for the 24-hours rainfall to 03:00 on 21st September. Note that rain did not commence falling until about 15:00 in most areas so this is really a 12-hour chart.

It's now just after 05:00 on the 21st September. During the night the rainfall has sounded like it was pretty constant. There has been lightning flashing around each time I woke up. This morning the rain is still falling, not constantly, but in very frequent short patches, and the lightning is flashing about once or twice every minute or so. There is an occasional rumble of distant thunder. Here is the current WXHK lightning map for the region:

At 10:00 today I gathered from the HKO the four 24-hour charts shown below for our AWS here in Sha Tin. In the Humidity and Temperature graph you can see very clearly the sudden arrival of the first rain band at 15:00 yesterday afternoon:

The pressure graph shows that it reached bottom just as the first rain band approached. From then on the storm was moving more to the North and the pressure here began to increase again.

Notice that the wind direction was mainly South-Easterly until the rain band arrived, when it swung around to a North Easterly direction. Then, when each thunderstorm came (18:00 to 20:00 and form 04:00 until10:00), we can see the wind direction changing frequently.

The wind speed chart shows that we didn't get any gale-force winds from this storm. The highest average wind speed was just as the rain band arrived before 15:00 yesterday afternoon.

To summarise, this storm had its most interesting days much earlier in the month when it did two complete circuits across Okinawa before approaching Taiwan from an unusual North Easterly direction. Notice in the map below how complicated the early part of its track was. If you look closely you can see several points where JTWC had to completely relocate the storm which just kept coming up with more surprises.

As early as last Sunday several of us were trying to guess just where this storm might be going. I think Cecil Ma made the best comment of all which can be seen at the end of this excerpt from the WXHK Forum pages:

From the South China Morning Post I have extracted this brief report on Nari as she hit Taipei on Sunday 16th September:

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Severe Tropical Storm Nari

Predicted to make direct hit on Hong Kong 20th September 2001