Typhoon Hagupit: Two women huddle under one umbrella.

Captured: September 24, 2008.

The leading edge of Tropical Storm Nuri is hitting the Chinese Mainland (Shenzhen, Guangdong Province). Nuri’s wrath looks a little like this:

The track of Tropical Storm Nuri

Nuri is the name of a species of blue parakeets native to Malaysia. This parakeet killed seven when it hit the Philippines earlier this week.

The 13th tropical storm of the season is about to slam into the Hong Kong/Shenzhen area of China. Much weakened, Tropical Storm Nuri (nee Typhoon Nuri) will boast winds of up to 73 miles per hour.

It’s been a bad year for tropical storms in the northern pacific. Typhoon Fengshen left 730 people dead and 637 missing on the island of Samar. Tropical Storm Kammuri killed 119 in Vietnam when it rolled through in early August. Forty died in China from the resulting floods.

Tropical Storm Nuri is expected to arrive early August 23, luckily, after the completion of the Olympic Equestrian events in Hong Kong. Kammuri disrupted the arrival of horses and athletes before the start of the games.

As I looked out the window early this morning (5:30 am GMT +8) the clouds were racing across the sky, strange and ominously shaped. A harbinger of things to come?

I’ll batten down the hatches, again. Just in time for the weekend…

I wanted to go to Hong Kong today. Or Macau. Either. Or. To be somewhere other than my apartment. Mother Nature had other plans.

From the Hong Kong Observatory:

The No. 8 Northeast Gale or Storm Signal is in force.

This means that winds with mean speeds of 63 kilometres per hour or more are expected from the northeast quarter.

At 8 a.m., Severe Tropical Storm Kammuri was centred about 150 kilometres south of Hong Kong (near 21.0 degrees north 114.0 degrees east) and is forecast to move west-northwest at about 14 kilometres per hour, edging closer to Hong Kong.

Local winds continued to strengthen over the past few hours. Occasional storm force winds are now affecting offshore and high grounds

According to the present track, local wind direction will change from northeast to southeast during the day. Areas previously sheltered from the winds will become exposed. The public should beware of the change in wind direction and take precautions as soon as possible.

In the past hour, the maximum sustained winds recorded at Waglan Island, Sai Kung and Ngong Ping were 105, 64 and 158 kilometres per hour respectively.

No excursion for The Stevo today.

From Xinhua News:

BEIJING, Aug. 5 (Xinhua) — China’s State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters said on Tuesday night it has launched a level-three disaster control emergency response to cope with tropical storm Kammuri.

Kammuri, the ninth tropical storm this year, was expected to make landfall along the coast between the cities of Shenzhen and Dianbai in Guangdong Province on Wednesday, the headquarters said.

Chen Lei, deputy commander-in-chief of the headquarters, ordered local governments to start their emergency response mechanisms and make full preparations for the storm’s landfall.

Local governments should monitor and forecast the situation and make all-out efforts to avoid casualties, said Chen.

As you can see from the map, my town, Shenzhen, will only be on the periphery. Yeah, okay. It almost 9 am and the wind is howling away. The storm proper, isn’t suppose to arrive until early tomorrow morning. If the direction changes…

Kammuri is Japanese for the constellation Corona Borealis, which resembles a crown. There is nothing starry or royal about this storm. Who picked the name? Completely irrelevant. But, I digress…

I’ll head out for supplies, make sure both my laptops are charged in case the power goes out, get some candles and beer ready, and be prepared to watch the show.

Tropical storms, typhoons, etc. aren’t much of a big deal. An inconvenience, yes, but they happen all summer long. At least I don’t live in Fujian or Taiwan province, they bear the brunt of most storms during typhoon season.

If you don’t see me in your RSS Reader for a day or two I probably have no electricity.

Yours from storm central,
Stevo

Image from: HK Observatory.
Links: HK Observatory, Xinhua News

Typhoon Fengshen rolled through Shenzhen yesterday. School was canceled city-wide, officials anticipating damage from the killer storm. Dorm students were confined to their quarters, many not pleased. Six to a room and a raging typhoon do not happy campers make.

Typhoon Fengshen, named by China and meaning God of Wind, left a swath of destruction across Asia. In the Philippines 598 people were reported dead and 700 missing from the torrential rain, flooding, winds and associated mudslides.

The typhoon made landfall in Shenzhen, China at approximately 2 pm (GMT +8) June 25, while this reporter had an afternoon nap. While his colleagues indulged in a decadent, no-school-today feast, The Stevo diligently answered email and continued with HR work. Being the Laoban often sucks.

It’s not easy to photograph rain. The above image is not my best work. In my defense, the image was snapped during a brief respite from email correspondence.

What is a Typhoon? See my informative piece on Associated Content.

There was a short break in the never-ending rain this week (above). Like all good things, it didn’t last. Last Friday the storm set a record, dumping more rain in one day than any in the last 50 years. The road outside my school flooded, denying access to the buses that ferry the students home for the weekend. They were not amused. A weekend at school, in class?

I am never without an umbrella.

From the CBC

Soldiers scrambled to shore up soggy levies with sandbags Tuesday in southern China as forecasters warned that heavy rain in the central region could trigger more flooding on the country’s second-longest river.

At least 63 have been killed in the past month, the official Xinhua news agency reported, noting that flooding has killed 171 since the beginning of the year.

This year’s flooding in 20 provinces and the western Xinjiang region has forced 1.27 million people to flee their homes, while crop damage was reported on nearly 1 million hectares, Xinhua said.

Read the entire story at CBC News.

While some countries are dealing with too much water other have enough to wantonly destroy it. From Canadian news:

CBC News has learned that 16 Canadian lakes are slated to be officially but quietly “reclassified” as toxic dump sites for mines. The lakes include prime wilderness fishing lakes from B.C. to Newfoundland.

Environmentalists say the process amounts to a “hidden subsidy” to mining companies, allowing them to get around laws against the destruction of fish habitat.

Under the Fisheries Act, it’s illegal to put harmful substances into fish-bearing waters. But, under a little-known subsection known as Schedule Two of the mining effluent regulations, federal bureaucrats can redefine lakes as “tailings impoundment areas.”

Read the entire story at CBC News.