The Swan Dancing to the Tune of Emerald

It’s not that these days all I’m interested in talking about is typhoon, but when I get engulfed by the stifling heat the moment I get out of the subway station, when the sky is shrouded by a layer of haze so thick I can almost cut with a knife, just like this afternoon, I can be sure that there is a typhoon hovering somewhere around the South China Sea.

Only this time there is not one - but three!

The Swan is back (or may likely be). Typhoon Goni has made an about turn around Hainan Island and can be heading eastward again. Its track in the next couple of days depends on Typhoon Morakot, which is now crossing the Taiwan Strait and heading towards Fujian and Zhejiang. Behind Morakot is another system that is yet to be named. Quite a party this.

It is a bit premature to be talking about the unnamed system yet. As for Goni and Morakot, when two cyclones are close to each other like this, there are the so-called “Fujiwhara effect”, whereby the stronger cyclone will affect the direction of movement of the weaker one or even absorb it. It seems then that the Swan might have to dance to tune of Emerald (the meaning of “Morakot” in Thai).