Shanghai braced for Typhoon Wipha

BBC News ^ | 18SEP07 | Staff

[Michael_Michaelangelo]

Some 200,000 people are being evacuated from China's financial hub, Shanghai, as a powerful typhoon barrels towards the country's east coast. Residents from the city's exposed areas were being moved to temporary shelters ahead of the arrival of Typhoon Wipha.

Forecasters said the storm, expected to make landfall by early Wednesday, could be the worst to hit in a decade.

[Michael_Michaelangelo]

[Michael_Michaelangelo]

Update:

China evacuates 1.8 million for typhoon

Wow!

[GreenLanternCorps]

The latest from Weather Underground's excellent Tropical Cyclone page.

[Joe Boucher]

Kick the chi-coms in the shins then go over and take a swipe at NOrth Korea?
Maybe the C.I.A. IS doing better then I give them credit.
Earlier this year Iran caught a nice storm too.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Asia pinglist ping.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

BBC In Pictures

Some 200,000 people are being evacuated from China's financial hub, Shanghai, as a powerful typhoon barrels towards the country's east coast.	Residents from the city's exposed areas are being moved to temporary shelters ahead of the arrival of Typhoon Wipha.
Rain fell steadily overnight, but the streets of the heavily-populated city remain busy, and schools and offices are open.	The typhoon, which is gaining strength as it approaches, could bring up to 200mm of rain and winds of 150km/h.
Wipha was upgraded from a tropical storm on Monday, and is expected to make landfall by early Wednesday.	Experts warn that it could be the worst storm to hit China since 1997, when Typhoon Winnie claimed 236 lives.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Hmmmm.....

Didn't turn out quite as expected.

[Zhang Fei]

Hurricanes in the Far East tend to be pretty tame compared with the ones we get on the East Coast. I suspect they’ll be all right.

[GATOR NAVY]

Actually the NW Pacific has many more tropical cyclones than the N Atlantic every year and a greater number of the Pacific storms are Cat 3 or stronger.

The perception that there are more Atlantic storms and that they are stronger is probably due mainly to the news coverage they get but it’s also a function of the sheer size of the Pacific. Many very powerful Pacific storms spend their entire existence over water or only affect isolated islands.

[CzarNicky]

So the Chinese are capable of evacuating from a storm but the residents of New Orleans need George W Bush to personally drive each and everyone of them out himself. Do I understand this correctly?

[Zhang Fei]

Many very powerful Pacific storms spend their entire existence over water or only affect isolated islands.

I should have clarified that this is what I meant. Hurricanes out there that people on land actually have to deal with are not much to talk about.