The Hong Kong Observatory will issue a Typhoon Signal 8 at 6.20pm local time — a warning of gale or storm force winds. If the alert remains as of 9am on Friday, the city’s US$5 trillion ($6.51 trillion) stock market will cancel its morning trading session. Yagi is currently 360km south-southeast of the city.
Hong Kong will issue its third-highest storm warning later Thursday as Super Typhoon Yagi skirts the city and tracks toward southern China, with coastal regions bracing for destructive winds and heavy rain.
Yagi has maximum sustained winds of 130 knots (241 km) per hour, according to the Joint Typhoon Warning centre. The system is equivalent to a Category 4 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, which is considered a major storm that has the capacity to inflict catastrophic damage.
