Weather TALK [forecasts, etc]

[Monseratto]

Naku, category 4 storm heading for a densely populated city isn't good...



http://www.businessweek.com/news/201...for-china.html

Oct. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Typhoon Megi, which left at least 10 people dead as it crossed the Philippines yesterday, strengthened as it churned over the South China Sea on a path to Hong Kong, the U.S. Navy Joint Typhoon Warning Center said.

The projected path has recently been fluctuating and the Joint Typhoon Warning Center has shifted Megi's second landfall toward the city of Hong Kong (population: 7 million) in southeastern China.

The storm, which made landfall as a supertyphoon on Luzon’s northeast coast yesterday before weakening over land, was about 350 kilometers (220 miles) northwest of Manila and 780 kilometers southeast of Hong Kong at 2 p.m. local time, the U.S. Navy said. Megi’s winds increased to 185 kilometers per hour and the storm was moving west-northwest at 11 kph.

Megi’s winds are forecast to strengthen to 213 kph as it crosses the South China Sea. That would make it a Category 4 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, capable of “catastrophic damage,” according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center. Megi may hit Hong Kong within three days, the U.S. Navy tracking map shows.