Severe Typhoon Mangkhut highlights perils of massive reclamation by Lantau
Submitted by Martin Williams on 19 October 2018 - 8:06pmTyphoon Mangkhut helped show “storm surge” is a threat to modern cities, not just something for the history books.
Typhoon Mangkhut helped show “storm surge” is a threat to modern cities, not just something for the history books.
You've surely seen the shocking images from Japan last week, including as Osaka's Kansai International Airport was flooded during the passage of Typhoon Jebi (4 September 2018). The airport was built on an island of reclaimed land, and images also showed a ship that was smashed into the bridge serving as the main link to the airport, fracturing a highway lane and ripping away half the ship's superstructure.
Typhoon Nida headed towards Hong Kong, very close or direct hit.
As perhaps the strongest El Nino on record declines, it may well be that by autumn could be swinging back to La Nina - with water cooler in eastern Pacific, warmer in the west.
Possible because this has happened with previous El Nino events; also now report of cold water below Pacific moving towards east, set to reach surface:
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/featured-images/la-niña-coming-deep-pool-cool-water-making-its-way-across-tropical
Update: Typhoon Nesat indeed impacted Hong Kong, though not a direct hit. Passed to southwest of Hong Kong, causing gale force and stronger winds over much of HK, so Number 8 signal issued.
Updates and images on Super Typhoon Megi, which has crossed Luzon from east to west, killing at least 11 people, and is now headed towards South China, with forecast tracks suggesting it could come close to Hong Kong - landfall maybe east Guangdong.
Before landfall over Luzon, it packed extremely powerful winds, reaching 230 km/hr over 10-minute average: making it one of three strongest tropical cyclones ever recorded.
After seeing news re unusually active Atlantic hurricane season being forecast, just checked about forecast for Wast Pacific tropical storms n typhoons, from Hong Kong's City University:
For the number of tropical storms and typhoons, most of the predictors consistently forecast a below-normal activity (ranging from 24 to 26) and therefore a below-normal TC activity (24 tropical storms and typhoons) is expected for this category
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