So Tommy was recently asked by a visiting colleague if it rains often in HK.  Tommy replied that it doesn’t rain all that often, but when it does, it comes down all at once. This is a problem when the city is basically built into a hillside and most slopes are paved. In fact, almost every slope in HK is identified by a serial number in an effort to identify and prevent potential landslides before they happen.

Last night, the black rainstorm warning signal was raised. Rainstorm warnings range form amber, to red, to black.  Black has been raised only twice in the past two years; we’ve seen quite a few rainstorm warnings. The storm last night produced hail big enough to break windows at a local mall.  Interior flooding seems to be everywhere. The volume of rain is unnerving, particularly when your throw in dramatic thunder and lightning, monsoon winds, and landslip warnings.

Because we don’t have local news, we are tied to our weather apps.  The Hong Kong Observatory provides the most detailed information about weather in HK. It is a government run site, but so far has proved reliable.  If you have the iPhone app, this is what you will see:

Each warning has an explanation:

Another bout of rain just came through and the amber rainstorm warning is still up, but it looks like things are settling down to just wet, wet, wet with some occasional thunder and lightning.