The tropical storm, Typhoon Haima, woke me up in my tiny apartment this morning. For the past 2 nights, there had been warnings from the Hong Kong Observatory (HKO) that the strong wind signal, number 3, might be in force.

It finally did, bringing huge showers of joy, at least to me. The sun had been too harsh on us for the past week. It was lovely to have a change. My Facebook’s newsfeed recorded the joys of friends who did not have to head to work because of the T3 signal.

I laughed, as I recalled how Typhoon Megi made a U-turn late last year, refusing to hit Hong Kong after days of wet weather. While it was certainly a kind gesture from Megi, it disappointed a number of people who were looking forward to an off-day from work due to a T8 signal. I smiled at memories of a group of us sitting around in a cosy Lan Kwai Fong pub, bitching about the missing appearance of dear old Megi.

Oh Megi, we missed you (literally).

Hong Kong, how unpredictable can you get?

*as a side note, while I was blogging this post, I began to ponder how tropical storms were named. I mean, why Megi? Why Haima? Before I googled for the answers, I even speculated that the forecasters probably named them after their ex-partners, equating them to massive destructors of life. Luckily I never dated a forecaster and thankfully, there is actually a systematic way of naming tropical storms. If you have an imagination as wild as I do and wish to prove yourself wrong, you can check out the link here.