The SUN HK : Typhoon Signal No 8 ‘most likely’ to be raised late Tuesday

11 October 2021

By The SUN

The Observatory says Kompass could be stronger than Lionrock, which caused No 8 to be raised for 22 hours

The Hong Kong Observatory says it will raise the No 3 typhoon signal tonight, Oct 11, as Severe Tropical Storm Kompasu moves within 800 km of the city.

The signal could most likely be upgraded to No 8 late tomorrow, Tuesday, or early Wednesday, when Kompasu moves within 400 km of Hong Kong. But that would depend on how the dry air from the monsoon affected the city.

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The forecasters said some unexpected events could happen that would prevent the higher signal being hoisted, like if the northeast monsoon would push Kompasu farther from Hong Kong and weaken its winds.

But they warned the second major storm to hit the city could be stronger than Lionrock, which led to the No 8 signal being hoisted over Hong Kong for 22 hours, the longest since 1978.

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At the press briefing, the Observatory’s director, Cheng Cho-ming promosed to deploy more staff to monitor the approach of Kompasu, saying the public advisories over the previous storm were not ideal.

The Observatory said at first that the No 8 signal would be lowered by mid-day Saturday, then said it would last until midnight, but did not actually lower it until 4:40am the next day.

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There were also criticisms about the black rainstorm warning being raised quite late on Friday when the rains were already pouring heavily, and some kids had already left for school.

HKO's Cheng promises to provide better and timely advisories this time

“We will enlist more of our staff, increase our manpower to monitor the situation so that we will have a better appreciation with the situation around and hopefully we can provide a better service this time,” Cheng said.

But he said Lionrock was a “special case” because even if it was 500km away from Hong Kong it brought strong winds, and also brought record-breaking rainfall in the city.

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The latest weather forecast says Kompasu was centred about 470 kilometres north of Manila, and is forecast to move west at about 25 km pero hour across the vicinity of the Luzon Strait.

It will be fine and dry tonight, cloudy tomorrow, with some squally showers later in the day. On Wednesdays it will be windy with heavy rain and squalls. The seas will be rough.