Hong Kong can let its guard down over the threat of a typhoon at the start of the week, as the weather forecaster has predicted a tropical cyclone off the eastern coast of Vietnam will move away from the city.
The Hong Kong Observatory said on Sunday that the city could expect hot weather on Monday followed by cloudy skies, showers and isolated thunderstorms in the next couple of days.
“The tropical depression over the central part of the South China Sea will be moving towards central Vietnam, and will keep a distance of more than 800km [497 miles] from Hong Kong,” Fan Man-hei, the Observatory’s scientific officer, told the Post.
He said it was “very much unlikely” to hit the city.
“But under the combined effect of the subtropical ridge and the tropical cyclone, winds will strengthen slightly and there will be more showers gradually over the coast of Guangdong in the next couple of days,” Fan said.
The weather forecaster last Friday said satellite images showed “two sets of obvious convective cloud clusters in the central and southern South China Sea and waters east of the Philippines” which, according to some computer models, could form an area of low pressure or a tropical cyclone.
The city already experienced its first tropical cyclone of the year when Tropical Storm Maliksi, which means “fast” in Tagalog, came within 300km of the city in late May, prompting the Observatory to issue the No 3 strong wind signal.
The Observatory said on Sunday a subtropical ridge was covering southeastern China, resulting in very hot weather in Hong Kong.
The mercury reached as high as 36.3 degrees Celsius (97.3 Fahrenheit) in the afternoon in Lau Fau Shan in the northwestern New Territories. The Observatory’s Tsim Sha Tsui headquarters also recorded a maximum temperature of 34.6 degrees.
A “very hot weather” warning has been in force since 8.30am on July 1.
Fan said showers and thunderstorms would hit the region in the coming days.
Maximum temperatures were expected to decrease slightly to about 32 or 33 degrees, he said.
But the mercury was likely to inch up again over the coastal areas of Guangdong province as a trough of low pressure weakened.
