Typhoon in May and stay away

Ben Kwok April 27, 2022 11:05

The traditional wisdom of “Sell in May and go away” seemed to come a month earlier as global stock markets continued to be hard hit by worries of inflation and the impact of China lockdowns.

While stocks are unpredictable, weather is even more unpredictable. We shall find out on the upcoming Labour Day.

Ahead of the traditional typhoon season from June to October, a cyclone is on its way to hit Hong Kong on 1 May, according to Hong Kong Observatory.

In its words, the Observatory forecasts that a northeast monsoon will reach the Guangdong coast early next week, while a tropical cyclone is likely to develop in the central to southern South China Sea towards the end of the week, with variability in its path and intensity.

As such, the cyclone could pass over 800 miles outside Hong Kong. Heavy raining could come on Monday, the public holiday following the Labour Day. How unexciting!

But the bad weather before the storm could come on Friday when the temperature is predicted to go up to 33 degrees, with some districts such as Sheung Shui possibly hitting 36 degrees.

The Observatory would have to issue a hot weather warning this Friday. If this happens, it will break the record in 2018 to issue the earliest hot weather warning of all time.

Of course we all experience the summer weather already in the past two days with temperature exceeding 30 degrees most of the day. It makes you wonder why the beach and pools are still closed.

In another record, the Observatory told us there is only three millimetres of rainfall in April, the driest April since 1994 when it first took record.

With six to eight typhoons to come this year, it reminds us that we should get prepared for the monsoon and rainy season.

It’s a rather safe statement that we heard from financial regulators that we should prepare for bull markets as well as bear markets.

We should take care of our health as well as financial health as both weather and the equity markets are not looking good.

But of course the sun always comes back again after the storm.

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Ben Kwok

EJ Insight writer