please empty your brain below
I've spent a fair amount of time, over the years, in Hong Kong, where typhoons are a metrological hazard. There is a warning system that goes T1 (warning) T3 (Strong wind) T8 (Gale & Storm) T9 Increasing T10 (Hurricane - take cover & lockdown). I've experienced T8 on the fringe of a full typhoon - gale force winds & driving rain, ferries and aircraft stopped.

Steve | 30.01.23 - 8:21 a.m. | #

I've also been through lots of typhoons in Hong Kong. Being on the 30th floor of a building which is swaying in a T10 is quite a scary experience!

Alan | 30.01.23 - 8:38 a.m. | #

Also done a Typhoon in Hong Kong - next day the sky was very clear (but by late afternoon the smog was back)

Paul | 30.01.23 - 9:30 a.m. | #

I was mid-Channel for the Burns Day Storm of 1990 and reckon hurricane-force winds at sea are worth a sheesh-this-is-frightening, proper hurricane or not. You can't stop me.

HTFB | 30.01.23 - 9:40 a.m. | #

I am counting the Storm of 87 as a hurricane as although not technically the winds were the same speed

Simon G | 30.01.23 - 9:42 a.m. | #

Definite 2 for Hurricane - we went through Hurricane "Bob" on 19th August 1991 in Provincetown Ma on Cape Cod. Barricaded in to sea level apartment in a motel on the inland facing side of the cape. Not an experience would like to repeat. I have video of a "rooster tail" of sand coming up under the door with incredible noise levels. Any way our Plymouth minivan was destroyed, the roof was off the Motel next door, but otherwise we escaped unharmed though there were deaths in the town.

Having experienced Tornados I would class those as more frightening though, there is something predictable about a hurricane, they take time to evolve, are tracked, with a predictable course. Tornados are anything but.

Richard | 30.01.23 - 11:14 a.m. | #

In New Zealand, and the South Pacific,
they are called cyclones. I was in Wellington for Cyclone Giselle in 1968, which had gusts with a wind speed of 171mph, which tore the roof off our house. Does that count?

Grub | 30.01.23 - 11:33 a.m. | #

I love the fact that the first three comments here are either Hongkongers or someone having been to Hong Kong.

It should be noted that decades ago those having to endure typhoon in Hong Kong also risk landslides afterwards.

Patrickov | 30.01.23 - 2:02 p.m. | #

Was holed up in a fancy hotel in Osaka for 24hrs~ in 2018 as Typhoon Trami barreled in - was a huge Cat 5 at one point, but fortunately weakened significantly when it made landfall.

MarcB | 30.01.23 - 2:06 p.m. | #

Was the last flight in to Hong Kong before airport closed for a typhoon a few years ago. Arriving in town later everywhere was deserted. Suppose I get one point.
Shame two Force 11 storms at sea in the South Atlantic get nul points. Not an experience I would relish again.

scrumpy | 30.01.23 - 2:10 p.m. | #

Hurricane Sandy in 2012 in New York City. Fortunately we were staying in Brooklyn which kept its power supply unlike lower Manhattan where we almost stayed. The experience was still really quite scary though and the lights flickered quite a few times. We went out to scenes of devastation the next morning.

Victoria | 30.01.23 - 4:40 p.m. | #

I was in Florida during Hurricane Ian, it was an interesting experience and very scary as I was on my own. Disney World took good care of me though and within a couple of days you wouldn't have known one came through at all-most of the debris was cleared.

Emma | 30.01.23 - 4:56 p.m. | #

Among others...Hurricane Isobel in 2003 and Hurricane Irene in 2011. The latter destroyed my son's home when high winds brought down a neighbor's 18 meter tree lengthwise across his home in the middle of the storm--which also brought 330 mm of rain. What the tree didn't take out, the sheer amount of water finished it off. Although we only live a few miles away, it took us several hours to reach his home after the storm passed due to all the downed trees and power lines. Took almost a year to rebuild the house.

Mary | 30.01.23 - 6:10 p.m. | #

Used to live in HK. 3 T10s (highest level), one or two T9s and countless T8s and below.

The risk isn't 0 but greatly reduced from what it used to be a couple of decades ago.

Matthieu | 30.01.23 - 9:06 p.m. | #

Also experienced one in Japan, must've been either 2016 or 2017. Most disorienting thing was that I wasn't used to the warning system there! Feels a little more unsettling when all the typhoon information and warnings is in a different language and different system than it is in HK!

Matthieu | 30.01.23 - 9:07 p.m. | #











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