Reply To: Severe Tropical Storm Fengshen heads towards Hong Kong

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For past 4 days I have been following the forecast of the track for FengShen and they have been consistant, they always reported it has been moving NW but it is going to recurve NE right now. Sunday they were showing the track east of Taiwan, then over Taiwan , the through the straits , eastern Guangdong, until yesterday afternoon. By then it seems they accepted this was not going to recurve – just keep going Nw – or NNW towards HK. This was not just HKO – all four agencies – China, Japan, US & HK all had similar forecasts. And all wrong . So there is still plenty to learn about what steers tropical revolving storms ? My own superficial observation has been that what ever steers them tends to be consistant for a period of months, each years storms tend to follow the same track. In recent years roughly 4 storms a year have crossed northern Taiwan and landed on the Zhejiang coast. ( I notice as I rely on some factories there) In 1999 3 storms in 2 weeks passed over HK, we were living on a boat and my 9 yo boy looked up from breakfast and asked if this was another ‘Eye’ – something expected once in a lifetime became briefly commonplace. But I think I saw it again today – I woke about 5:45 and there was a very strange orange glow to the clouds and no wind or rain – in Sheungwan. I think the colour was the sunrise through thinner cloud because within 15 minutes it was much darker and a purple hue, 20 gusting 30kts and heavy rain.