Dangerous Typhoon Hagupit is passing just to the south of Hong Kong. And even the newly formed, rather formidible looking, northern eyewall is also passing just offshore.
So, hopefully, the city of Hong Kong itself, with all it's high rises and massive infrastructure, appears to have escaped the very worst of Hagupit's wrath.
This recent microwave image of the cyclones' core structure depicts a very pronounced and symmetrical eyewall surrounding a nearly perfectly circular calm clear eye, usually indicative of a very well organized and very intense tropical cyclone.
If you look closely and compare with the previous microwave image, you will notice that the calm eye is even more symmetrical, forming nearly a perfect circle. However, the brightest reflectivities appear (at the time of image) to be in the SW quad, with the northern-most portion of the eyewall appearing just a tad scant.
Perhaps some of that intense convection of the northern eyewall is working it's way down to the surface and overspreading areas adjacent to (just outside of) the 'ring' of greatest reflectivity. I'd be real curious to see just what kind of sustained winds are occuring in Hong Kong right now. Will scour the web for that info momentarily.
Although the NRL website is still posting intensity at 105 Kts., intensity estimates from the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC), based here in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, range as high as 115 Kts., presumably due to the improved eyewall signature and T-number estimates.
While HK may have escaped a "worst case scenario" with Hagupit, one can only hope and pray for those unfortunate souls who will be experiencing this cyclones' full wrath in the coming hours as Hagupit churns it's way towards what will surely be a deadly and destructive landfall.
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Hagupit Update: Eyewall Passing Just South of Hong Kong
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