A Dark and Rainy Day

This mid-afternoon became very dark and very wet

This spring in Hong Kong weather-wise has been very strange. We've had a prolonged spring which started off great, but now as summer is approaching, the weather has become more humid and unstable.

The aftermath of flooding in Tai Hang

Today was particularly dramatic. As I headed to Central for a haircut it was very humid and afterwards I made it to the gym just as raindrops were starting to fall.

It got so bad that around 2.40pm the sky turned black, turning day into night with lots of thunder and lightning. The Hong Kong Observatory raised the Amber rainstorm warning, that quickly turned to Red.

Many people were holed up at the gym and the food counter there made a killing today with people snapping up sandwiches and drinks to wait for the rain to subside.

Restaurants and hotels around town must have had good sales too, as the storm hit just as the lunch hour was ending with people lingering and ordering more, though staff must have missed having a decent break.

By the time I left Central at around 3pm the rain wasn't too bad but there were lots of big puddles. A friend in Tai Hang showed me a picture of massive flooding there and that earlier it was a severe windstorm where he was, claiming it was like being in a typhoon.

The skies cleared up for the rest of the afternoon and evening

Later in the afternoon the weather actually cleared up and people starting emerging and rushing out to do shopping or other errands, though the supermarket and wet market near my home weren't too busy.

Wonder what tomorrow brings...!

Weather Woes

An umbrella is a must these days, and wearing rubber boots is even better...

This morning the weather looked... fine. It looked muggy and hazy, and when I left for work, the Hong Kong Observatory's weather report said there could be isolated thunderstorms so I packed the umbrella.

By 11am in Taipo, the trees were swaying in the strong winds and then the sky got noticeably darker. Then the downpours came, so much so in the olden days, people would have started building an ark.

There was thunder and lightning too. The Hong Kong Observatory says there were almost 5,000 lightning strikes within three hours of thunderstorms.

Li Yuet-sim, acting senior scientific officer at the observatory says the exact number was 4,884 times between 11am and 1.59pm. Of that, 3,916 of the lightning strikes were in New Territories East, where our office is.

This is not considered the highest concentration -- that was on September 9, 2010 when there were 13,000 cloud-to-ground lightning strikes.

I'm trying to remember where I was that day, and I think I was probably in the office.

We're supposed to get similar weather tomorrow...