Typhoon Nida!

Hi Everybody,

We just thought we'd report that we are surviving Typhoon Nida.  There is a lot of wind and tons of rain that has been going on through the night.  Bus and taxi service has been shut down and there are very few cars on the roads.  Maybe this means we won't be going to the office or the temple today, too? A wind alert 8 (out of 10) has been effect since about 8 pm last night (it's currently 8 am) which means that everything shuts down--no buses, trains, ferries, etc.

This is what it looked like yesterday afternoon from our office before the storm; kind of a weird hazy scene.  Since our office temperature is always so cold, we thought there might be a snow storm coming!!!!

After getting off the bus when coming home, here's a photo looking ant the entrance to the Cross Harbor Tunnel and back across the harbor toward Hong Kong Island; looking ominous and hazy at about 4 pm.

Here's a photo from the news of the gathering clouds before the typhoon.  I liked what the news said about it yesterday:  Nida is coming, Coconauts.

The Typhoon Signal No. 3 was raised just before noon today, as Hong Kong is set to be hit with a blistering tropical cyclone tonight... and we promise you, last week’s storm ain't got nothin' on this one.

At 1pm today, the cyclone was reported to be just 420 kilometres away from the city, moving at 25 kilometres per hour. 

The Hong Kong Observatory will consider issuing a No. 8 Gale or Storm Signal between 6pm and 10pm today. 

(Just for good measure, the Very Hot Weather Warning has also been in force since 11:45am.) 

"The weather will deteriorate rapidly after sunset," warned the observatory, adding that there will be "squalls, heavy rain, rough seas" and maybe flooding in low-lying areas. 

The typhoon's past and predicted track. Photo: Hong Kong Observatory 

Nida is currently moving speedily towards the coast of Guangdong, according to the Observatory’s cyclone track. The typhoon will be within closest proximity to Hong Kong from tonight until tomorrow morning.

HKO, US National Hurricane Centre and the Korea Meteorological Administration all predict that Nida will strike Lantau Island the most severely, according to local blog Lantau Confidential. 

Hongkongers are advised by the government to check that gutters and drains are free of blockage, and to lock windows and doors.

This is what greeted us at the doors of our apartment building.  Fortunately, they left one door open to enter!

They placed barriers all around and staked down some of the trees, etc. 

In the evening, we walked out to look at the harbor and the waves were larger than normal and there weren't any boats which was really weird to see as there are usually lots of them.

The waves in the harbor are probably much larger now but we are on the wrong side of the building to see them and we don't want to go outside in the storm.  Gary is worried that the wind might mess up his hair (ha, ha).

Here are some pretty red flowers that just started blossoming in front of our apartment building.

 



Click on the links below to learn more about Typhoon Nida

More on Nida two hours ago

CNN reporting on Nida

We could hear lots of rain and wind last night and this is the scene we see out our window this morning.  Every now and then the building rumbles and shakes a little bit but nothing dangerous.  

Below are a couple of videos we took this morning from our apartment.  You can see broken trees and branches in the trees.

So we decided to go out a few minutes ago and it is a lot more intense outside than it looks from the inside.  Our umbrellas all blew out the wrong way and when we were coming back there was such a strong gust of wind that just kept coming that some of us had to hold on to a barrier.  Elder Chandler got soaked from the rain and from a fountain in front of our hotel that continued to blow all over him as he was walking.  We wish we could have taken more videos but the gale was too strong to take any more. 

 

Here's Elder Towers and Elder Chandler.  We were the only ones crazy enough to go out and check out the harbor. 

Here's Sister Towers with Sister Chandler.

So this is our early post for this week, but to end, this morning in just googling storms, this link came up that puts things into perspective from the life of the prophet, Joseph Smith:  Storms of Life