First Typhoon of the Season to Hit South China This Week

Summer has arrived in South China, which means heat, people complaining about heat, random bouts of torrential rainfall and anticlimactic typhoons. 

While the Pearl River Delta has received a considerable dose of stiflingly hot weather and sporadic rain over the past month or so, this weekend we received our first typhoon warning of the season, which spans from May until early November.

According to the South China Morning Post, a low pressure area currently in the central South China Sea is expected to head north on Monday, June 12, towards Hong Kong. The approaching storm has been dubbed Tropical Cyclone Merbok. 

“Tropical Cyclone Merbok will move northwards across the northern part of the South China Sea and will make landfall over Guangdong between Monday night and Tuesday morning,” a spokesman for the Hong Kong Observatory told the SCMP. 

“A trough of low pressure will linger over the South China coast in the middle and latter parts of this week. It will continue to bring showers and thunderstorms to the region.”

While it is currently unclear what, if any, extreme weather Guangzhou and Shenzhen may be subject to, we encourage all readers to plan accordingly and pack an umbrella. 

[Images via Financial Times, Hong Kong Free Press]