Typhoon Koppu

For those of you who might be curious, here was the track for Typhoon Koppu (巨爵). Incidentally, the name was submitted by Japan, so the meaning might be different from the Chinese characters, which literally translate to "giant nobility," or something like that. The No. 8 signal was hoisted Monday night around 8:30 PM, and they kept it up until 9:30 AM Tuesday morning. (However, I still had to get up at 6:30 to check the signal because UM morning classes are canceled only if the signal is still up after 7:00 AM.) You can see how close the storm passed to Macau before landing in Guangdong:

According to the local news, no one was killed, but there were a couple hundred injuries/accidents from things like tree branches and signs being blown around/falling down. Since the worst of the storm passed overnight, I mostly slept through it, but on the commute this morning, it was pretty clear that there was major damage, especially to the trees around the Portuguese school and the Hotel Lisboa. This is a picture of the trees at the New Century stop where I get off the bus every morning - lots of branches yanked off, and the sidewalks were covered with wet leaves.

Overall, first typhoon experience wasn't too bad - the only part I personally experienced was the strong winds trying to blow me off the UM walkways, and watching the sheets of rain coming down outside our living room balcony window. Thankfully, it should be the end of the season, so we hopefully won't be having any more major storms this year.