First the Good News: Major Typhoon Hagupit will spare a direct hit on densely populated Hong Kong. The latest bulletin (#19) now has Hagupit traveling just north of due west, or 275 degrees, taking the center well south of the mega-opolis.

Which means no calm eye passage, which means no hurricane (typhoon) winds screaming in from the opposite direction after the calm eye passage, as happened recently in Galviston.

Now the not-so-good news: Similar to Hurricane Ike, Typhoon Hagupit is a LARGE tropical cyclone and, also like Ike, has a strong, secondary, 'ring-of-maximum-winds' flung far from the storm center.

And Hong Kong is not out of the woods just yet, as it may still encounter a brush with this northern-most 'eyewall', or region of maximim winds.

As seen in this recent microwave image (not the greatest quality) one can observe what appears to be a weakening inner eyewall but, more importantly wind-wise, there is a very obvious OUTER eyewall forming at a large radius from the storms' center.

And while it's certain that Hong Kong Harbor will experience some degree of storm surge (perhaps quite significant with the eyewall passing v-e-r-y close by), it's still NOT certain that this Northern Eyewall will (or won't) make a Direct Passage over the metropolitan area.

A notorious 'wobble', even 10 or 20 miles to the north, between now and closest point of approach, would squarely put Hong Kong's populace in the thick of it, wind-wise, with regard to this developing 'outer eyewall'.

Still having a tough time getting any radar imagery out of Hong Kong. Anyone know of a good link? Seems that the Hong Kong Observatory's Weather Server is SWAMPED with traffic, presumably regarding Hagupit, which renders it essentially useless.

Anticipating the latest microwave imagery very soon, which should be very 'telling'. Check back soon!