Category: Weather

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Tuesday/ typhoon Hato hits Hong Kong

The Hong Kong Observatory issued a rare No. 10 ‘Severe Typhoon’ signal at 9:10 a.m. local time and said it will remain in force for “a couple of hours”.
Photographer: Anthony Wallace/AFP via Getty Images. The tall building in the center of the picture is the International Commerce Center.

I see Typhoon Hato is brushing by the south of Hong Kong, closing the stock market as well as the airport there. Here is a write-up just in from Bloomberg Business Week.

I’m sure it’s a somewhat unsettling day for the occupants of the 102nd – 108th floors in the swank Ritz Carlton, at the top of the International Commerce Centre building in Hong Kong!

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Monday/ go west (to stay warm)

My flight out today was full as usual, but went without incident, and we arrived on time at San Francisco airport.   The winter’s coldest weather is pushing into the midwest and all the way south into Texas, but on the West coast we have relatively warmer temperatures.   I love the graphics on the weather underground’s maps. (Check out http://www.wunderground.com/wundermap/).

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This one shows temperatures in Fahrenheit, and the red pin is Walnut Creek where our project office is.

 

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This map shows temperatures in Celsius. 5 °C is not so bad after all. It is very cold in Canada .. brrr.

 

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Thursday/ snowing

The snow flakes started coming down just as we were leaving the project site today, and it 1-10-2013 8-17-42 PMhas been sifting down steadily since then.  A total accumulation of 5 to 8 inches is expected in the lower areas;  much more in the mountains.  I will definitely have to navigate some snowy roads on the way to the airport tomorrow (Friday) !

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Here is the Old Post Office across from the Marriott Ogden. I couldn’t venture out very far, since it’s very cold and still snowing lightly even though it does not look like it on the photo.
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This is about 8 pm. The streets in downtown Ogden (yes, I know – no skyscrapers here!) have a layer of snow, and are almost deserted.
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This is around 4 pm  We’re driving back to Ogden from the project site.  The snow is just starting to stick to the road surface.
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Wednesday/ typhoons and tornados

Super typhoon Songda is churning near the Phillippines (outlined in grey in the NASA Earth Observatory photo I found on-line).    It is expected to brush by the east side of Taiwan.   These systems are hundreds of miles across !   And the recent tornados in the US makes for a grim statistic : the highest number of tornado deaths since 1953 (picture from ouramazingplanet.com).