Over a weekend in mid-summer, Southern China and Hong Kong braced for severe weather impacts as Typhoon Noul barrelled toward the coast, triggering high-level weather alerts, mass transport disruptions and large-scale civilian evacuations across the region.
According to Hong Kong’s Observatory, the storm had intensified steadily as it crossed the northeastern South China Sea on Saturday, recording maximum sustained winds of 140 kilometers (87 miles) per hour near its center while moving gradually closer to eastern Guangdong’s coastline. Forecasters have offered slightly differing timelines for the storm’s landfall: Hong Kong’s weather service projects Noul will come ashore near the Guangdong cities of Huizhou and Shanwei on Sunday morning, while China’s national weather center predicts landfall will occur sometime between late Saturday and early Sunday. All forecasts agree that the storm will bring a dangerous mix of powerful sustained winds and intense squally rainfall to large swathes of the region.
Transport disruption has been widespread even before the storm makes landfall. Official data from Hong Kong International Airport confirmed that more than 150 flights scheduled for Saturday and Sunday have already been canceled, leaving thousands of passengers stranded amid travel disruptions. In Guangdong province, all domestic rail services scheduled for Sunday have been scrapped entirely, as local authorities work to clear transport corridors ahead of the storm. By late Friday, local media reports confirmed that more than 20,000 residents in high-risk coastal areas of Guangdong had already been evacuated to emergency shelters.
In Hong Kong, partial collapse of large-scale scaffolding on a high-rise building was reported Saturday afternoon as pre-landfall wind speeds picked up. Local police confirmed that no injuries had been reported in the incident as of the latest update.
Beyond Guangdong and Hong Kong, the storm is also bringing weather impacts across the region. China’s National Meteorological Center warned that sections of southeastern Guangdong and southern Fujian’s coastline will see extreme heavy rainfall through the weekend. Off Taiwan, the storm passed through waters south of the island on Saturday, bringing significant rainfall to parts of southern and eastern Taiwan before continuing westward away from the island.
Typhoon Noul marks the third significant tropical cyclone to impact China within the first half of July. Earlier this month, Typhoon Bavi made landfall in eastern China on July 11, bringing destructive wind and rain that forced the evacuation of more than 2 million people across affected regions. Before that, Typhoon Maysak came ashore in southern China on July 3, marking an unusually active early start to the 2020s Pacific typhoon season for coastal China.