Typhoon Utor - Near Direct hit on Hong Kong on 6th July 2001

Well, David, you Aussies got it dry because we copped the lot right here.
The HKO staff are apparently having a long weekend because the final
record for June will not be available until after the 4th July but here
is an excerpt from the HKO June Summary up to 28th June:
========================
 The weather of June 2001 was marked by persistent heavy rain and squally
thunderstorms under the repeated influence of active troughs of low
pressure near the south China coast. The monthly rainfall up to 28 June
amounted to 1050.4 millimetres, about three times the monthly normal
figure of 376.0 millimetres. This is a new record for June, previous
record being 962.9 millimetres in June 1966.
=========================
As we have had Typhoon Durian with all of its rainbands since then, I
expect the final total for the month will be well over 1.1 metres.
Still the rainbands of Durian are crossing us every few hours even though
its centre is now nearly 500 Km away in inland GuangXi Province and it is
supposed to be dissipating.
Now we have Tropical Storm Utor spinning up in the Philippine Sea which
will probably help ensure a damp July as well.
So if any of you Aussies want to experience a bit more moisture than you
have down there right now, just slip into your nearest travel agent and
book a trip to dank, damp, dripping, dreary, drizzly Hong Kong!

Isn't UTOR a whopper!

The last rain bands of Typhoon Durian swept across us yesterday.  I could
hardly stay on my feet due to the winds as I walked up to the doctor's
office.  And the rain was almost solid.  Then in the afternoon it was
clear sunny skies.
And this morning it is clear sunny skies with the river looking like a
mirror.  What's wrong with that?  Well, it's summertime here and during
the summer clear skies mean only one thing ... there's an immense storm
on the way!
The satellite pics show Typhoon Utor with a cloud diameter of 2000 Kms
headed exactly in this direction.  The nearest cloud bands have already
crosed the Philippines and Taiwan, so I guess our sunny skies will
disappear by tonight.  I will be surprised if we don't get a number 8
typhoon signal out of this one. (Number 8 closes everything down and
everyone is confined to their homes)  We may even get signals 9 or 10
(increasing gales or full hurricane) as well.
I have gathered a lot of useful links for following it on
http://www.drdisk.com.hk/cyclones.htm
and if my site gets bombed out by the storm it will be mirrored on Carl's
site.
Looks like an exciting few days coming up.

Yep.  Here she comes.
The pressure in Shatin has dropped from 1003 to 989.
We have had the 33C plus temperatures over midnight in most of HK and the
cloud bands have been passing over an otherwise clear but hazy sky.
The centre is still 620 Km ESE of here, but the winds have been picking
up all night.

Jimmy, we beat Schofields by 1080.8 mm!  Our total here for June was
1083.6 mm, the highest on record.
The summary for this month is at
http://www2.info.gov.hk/hko/wxinfo/pastwx/monthly.htm
and as this was a month for superlatives you have to scroll a long way.
And now we are under Typhoon Utor whose centre is 620 Km ESE of here but
whose winds and rain have already arrived.

The HKO site is utterly unreachable from HK and WXHK is not much better.  
It rolled over its 10 millionth hit after 1900 yesterday and early this
morning had added on more than 69000 more since then.  Leaves your site
and mine behind in the dust!
Went for a long walk this morning and couldn't get back home as the sea
level had risen so high that the footpath and cycleway were underwater so
I had to clamber up onto the road bridge and risk my neck amongst the
traffic.
Tomorrow morning's high spring tide with the storm surge added should be
a rare sight.  I'm glad my flat is on the fourth floor.
Cannot get onto the Forum at present, server overloaded.
Gusty here and bands of high level cloud going over frequently with clear
blue skies in between.  You can feel it picking up.
I am going out to work now and might well be sent fleeing for home by a
number 8 signal before I finish.
Will attempt to update you later.
I won't get time to send this to Aussie weather so you might forward on
whatever I get through to you.
SeeYer.

While I was out working today, there were many rain bands chasing each
other over HK with increasingly strengthening winds as each band crossed
over and decreasing amounts of blue sky in between.

I left my last appointment at about 18:00 and rang Wendy's phone and
discovered she was waiting in an enormous queue for a bus right near
where I was.  The queues had swelled suddenly because the HKO had just
announced that Signal Eight would be hoisted within the next two hours.

I picked her and Victor up and decided to give the Central tunnels a miss
and go the long way round because the traffic was so heavy.  Bad choice.  
Everybody else must have had the same idea because it took two hours for
a twenty-two minute drive.  The traffic striving to get home before the
hoisting of Signal Eight was so dense that the tunnel authorities
switched the lights to allow an additional tunnel to be used for going
homewards so we had three lanes North and one South.  It feels odd to
drive along freeways on the other side of the central plantation in what
is normally the oncoming traffic lane with two single lanes of opposing
traffic.
Even with the emergency extra lanes, the traffic was slowed to a crawl
and the rain just teemed down.  In fact it would have been rather
dangerous to have driven much faster anyway.  The gusts of winds were
rocking the car about and my car is only small and low - a Suzuki Swift
(called a Holden Barina in Australia, I think).  The taller cars and vans
were really swaying about.
The observatory hoisted the Typhoon Signal number Eight (North East Gale
Force Winds) at 19:30 while I was still driving home. At about 19:45 the
rain suddenly cleared and there was dead calm.  Strange how often that
happens just after the hoisting of a Gale or Hurricane Signal.
And no, it was not the eye of the storm, that was still 300 odd
kilometres away.  It just happens that you can get a completely calm spot
in between the rainbands on occasion.
Now as I type at about 20:45, the rain is still holding off, but the wind
is picking up again in gusts.
Apart from traffic chaos, I don't think the storm has caused many other
problems as yet.
JTWC, HKO, and JMA are all still predicting an extremely close approach
to HK tomorrow morning.
I shall endeavour to keep you posted.
It is extremely difficult to get onto any web-site related to weather
here at the moment.  Clarence has had 153,281 hits to his page in less
than 24 hours.

G'day from wet HK
At 23:40 last night the HKO changed the Typhoon Signal to Eight (North
West Gale Force Winds).  Note that I now have commenced a page at
http://www.drdisk.com.hk/utor.htm which is repeating the contents of our
e-mails until I can write up a more coherent report.
During the night I didn't hear much of note except for a few crashes
which were presumably people's pot-plants that hadn't been taken in
hitting our air-con on their way to the ground.
At 22:30 it was almost calm and the river looked like a mirror - hardly a
ripple.  There were a few significant windy periods during the night but
they didn't sound like Gale force to me.
The sea level here is now up by one metre and the HKO is warning that it
might be up by three metres later today so all people in low-lying
villages are moving their belongings to higher floors in case of flooding.
A (live television) report from Tai Po (12 Km North West of here) at
07:20 says that winds are now gale force there and it is raining very
heavily.  Here the wind does not seem to be gale force, but the rain is
varying between a medium drizzle and really bucketing down in frequently
changing waves.
Outside my window I can see that the sea level has risen far enough to
completely flood over the fences surrounding all low lying footpaths,
cycleways and parks.  Motor roadways, however are all built to be above
any known flood levels and are several metres higher.
As the rain seems to be easing right now, I might go down to the river
bank shortly for a look.
I cannot get any HKO references on the Internet at present but an HKO
spokesman on TV just said that the winds were expected to get much worse
today and that everybody should stay indoors.
Almost all busses have been cancelled and the railways are running at
reduced headway.  All trams and the peak tram (funicular railway) are
cancelled and of course all ferry services are cancelled.  The airport is
still operating as normal, but many flights are cancelled or delayed.
All schools, offices, businesses, etc. are closed.
Now as I type at 07:41, there is only a slight breeze here in Shatin.
More later.

Utor has been downgraded to a Tropical Storm by all agencies.
I have just come back from an attempted walk.  My usual exercise walk
along the bank of the Shing Mun river (tidal) is impossible this
morning.  The water level is 60 cm above the footpath and 70 cm above the
cycleway.
The watermark shows it has been 1 metre above the footpath and 110 cm
above the cycleway at some stage in the last few hours.
Weather is currently like a very heavy drizzle and just a slight breeze.  
Number Eight still hoisted.
It seems from satellite pictures that Utor is shrinking very rapidly.  
Looking on the map it appears to be going ashore about 100 Km East of
here.  JTWCs prediction of a direct hit looks to be a little off.

Victoria Harbour on live television a few minutes ago had waves of about
two metres breaking over the waterfront at Wanchai and it appeared to be
very windy there.  Still barely a breeze in sheltered Sha Tin and no
doubt the HKO in the middle of built up Kowloon will be well sheltered
also.  
I still cannot get onto the HKO site which is obviously overloaded.
This town has around two million registered Internet users, and I reckon
they are all trying to look at HKO.

JTWC has upgraded it to a Typhoon again, HKO has upgraded it to a Severe
Tropical Storm, and I cannot get JMA.
The Typhoon Signal Eight (South West Gales) was hoisted by the HKO at
09:40 this morning.
Note that HKO has four different Number Eight signals for NE, NW, SE and
SW Gales.  We have now had three of the four hoisted during this storm.
During the 10:30 Typhoon report on TV we saw pictures of Central
(downtown Hong Kong) with about 30-60 cm water covering the streets.
Still relatively calm but very wet here.  As the winds are now from the
South West, we are sheltered by the mountains.
Everything is closed down so apart from economic losses to businesses
etc. the typhoon is having very little effect.

My wife, Wendy and I decided we could make good use of the "no work"
conditions which arise in HK when Typhoon Signal Eight is hoisted, so we
packed our bags, left our four children in charge of our domestic helper,
and went across the road to the Restaurant for lunch.  Normally in
typhoon conditions it would be necessary to go via the underground car-
park, but as the winds were calm we just walked straight across.
There were high clouds, no rain, and only a slight breeze.  I checked the
signal ... Typhoon Signal Eight (SW Gales) was still hoisted.
After lunch we decided to proceed to the hotel where we were booked to
have our first night away from the kids in several years.  At the
restaurant door I observed that Signal Eight was still hoisted and
outside it now looked like it! Trees were bending double, nobody could
keep an umbrella up and the rain was pelting almost horizontally so that
I could just barely make out our home 30 metres away.  I looked back at
the signal at 13:40 and saw that Signal Eight was just being replaced by Signal
Three!  I couldn't believe it!  The first really decent squall out of
Utor and they lowered the signal to Three!
I decided crossing the road was too dangerous and went underground to get
some stuff from the car and then underground again to join Wendy back at
the restaurant.
We grabbed our brollies and walked through the car-park to the end of our
property where it would only be a 120 metre walk to the hotel.  We paused
and looked at the horizontal rain.  A bloke with a brolly went out and
his brolly immediately collapsed inwards and he was instantly soaked to
the skin.  I think the surrounding 30-storey buildings were acting like a
wind-tunnel to make the wind much fiercer there than at the Shatin AWS
which was then recording only 29 km/h 10-minute averaged wind speeds.  We
decided against going to the hotel that way and went back to the
restaurant where the taxis wait under cover.  There we took a taxi for
the twenty-seconds trip to the hotel where we could also get out under
cover.  That was our shortest taxi trip ever, but worth every penny of the $15 fare!
We checked into our room and had a very enjoyable afternoon.  In the
evening around 19:00 to 19:30 we went shopping for food (hotel
restaurants are too expensive) and observed a great deal of rain and
estimated the consistent wind speed to be about 30 km/h with some gusts
much higher.  
The Signal Three remained hoisted throughout the night.  We could hear a
lot of wind noise from outside the hotel at times while we watched Rafter
defeating Agassi on a live telecast from Wimbledon.  Some of the noise
turned out to be the demolition of a 12 storey high sign fastened to the
end of the hotel building which we saw next morning had been thoroughly
shredded during the night.
At about 06:00 this morning I looked out of the window and observed that
whole trees were still bending double and the odd palm branch was flying
through the sky.  It was raining heavily, so back to bed.
About 09:00 I looked out again and the roads were still wet, rain was
very light and the trees were now bobbing their heads but no longer
bending double.
About 11:00 we checked out of the hotel and walked home. The roads were
now dry and the wind was a little gusty but less than 20 km/h.  Not
difficult for walking.
As we walked home the street was strewn with leaves, twigs and small
branches.  No other damage was visible.
I was most surprised while walking past the signal at 11:19 to see that
Signal Three was still hoisted.
At 11:21 I got online for the first time in 24 hours and observed that
the signal had been lowered one minute earlier.
I drove to Hong Kong Island after lunch and as I entered the Tunnel under
Victoria Harbour I was amusing myself thinking how safe tunnels would be
to drive in during typhoons when all the brake lights suddenly went on
and I had to do an emergency stop.  Two big trucks, a van and a taxi had
all piled into each other three car lengths in front of me.  Fortunately
nobody appeared to be injured.  I was stuck there for ages while they
sorted out the wreckage thinking tunnels might not be such a safe place
after all!
On HK Island, it was immediately obvious that there had been higher winds
than we had at Sha Tin, because the damage to trees was considerably
greater.
After my work on HK Island I returned home in time to watch the TV news
reports.  Nobody was reportedly injured during typhoon Utor.  Traffic and
transportation was somewhat chaotic and more than 100 flights were
grounded -  not during the number 8 signal, but during the number 3
signal which followed.
All the ferries which had returned to work after the 8 to 3 signal
transition were later suspended by their operators who decided that
regardless of what signal HKO had hoisted, it was too dangerous to
operate on the harbour. They went back to work today.
The airport is still trying to sort out their backlog of stranded
passengers and aeroplanes.
So while Utor was only 89 Km North of here, all was quiet, but later on
when Utor was more than 300 km away, the real winds came.  This shows
that the highest winds were in the periphery of the storm and not near
the centre.
This will probably be my last report on Utor unless some other news comes
to light.
Hooroo for now.

Dear all,

   Severe flood are now effecting southwest China. Please see report below.

   NANNING, July 8 (Xinhuanet) -- More than 300,000 local residents  and
servicemen have so far joined the fight against the flood  caused by
typhoons Civet Durian and Utor, and the people in the  capital city of the
Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region are still  living a normal life.
   Storms have poured heavily as the typhoons swept across the  region in
the past week. The water level of the Yong River that  cuts through Nanning
has risen to a record high in half a century, posing a threat to the
people's life and property, said local  officials.
   The central authorities have issued instructions to the local  
government, demanding local officials to go all out to combat the  flood
and ensure the safety of residents.
   Teams headed by top officials in the city government to inspect, examine
and protect dykes have been organized. A supervision team  has also been
formed to oversee the anti-flood work, and any  negligence will be severely
punished.
   At present, the daily lives of residents in the flood-stricken  capital
have not been much affected, Li Jiheng, secretary of the  city committee of
the Communist Party of China, who cited an  example of 1.3 million kilos of
vegetables being delivered from  neighboring cities and provinces to
Nanning with no reported price rise.
   Meanwhile, 130,000 students are safe sitting entrance  examinations
after concerned government departments moved the  flood-affected test
centers to secure areas.
   Donations worth 1.5 million (181,000 U.S. dollars) has so far  been
received for flood relief in the city.  

Best regards,
HCl