摘要
Severe typhoon Vicente(1208) was the first tropical cyclone that necessitated the issuance of No.10 Hurricane Signal in Hong Kong since Typhoon York back in 1999.Hurricane force winds were recorded over the southwestern part of Hong Kong during the passage of Vicente.In the evening on 23 July 2012,“convective hot towers” appeared on the eyewall of Vicente and were captured on both radar imagery and lightning location map.The corresponding cloud top overshot 15 km up to the top of the troposphere,accompanied by cloud-to-ground lightning.Such observations signified that the associated updraft turned violent at the locations of convective hot towers.Shortly afterwards,Vicente intensified rapidly to a severe typhoon over the South China Sea to the south-southwest of Hong Kong around midnight,reaching its peak intensity with an estimated maximum sustained wind of 155 km/h near its centre.It is the first time in the century-long tropical cyclone history of Hong Kong that the signature of “convective hot towers” in a rapidly intensifying typhoon can be observed in details by multiple remotesensing platforms.This paper serves to document such rare observational evidence and share the main results as a checklist for reference by operational forecasters when monitoring proximate typhoons for signs of rapid intensification.
