The Hong Kong Observatory's history with weather radar started in 1959 when a Decca 41 weather radar was first installed at Tate's Cairn (大老山), at an altitude of about 580 m above mean sea level
This is the image of Wanda, captured by Decca 41.Responsible for 130 fatalities and 600 injured, Wanda was the second worst typhoon in Hong Kong. The catastrophic typhoon that strike Hong Kong on September 2, 1937 killed 11,000 pepole!
Regular meteorological observations commenced in 1884 – a year after the establishment of the Hong Kong Observatory. Tropical cyclone warning system - the earliest marine meteorological service - was instituted in the same year. This system was replaced by a ten-symbol system in 1917. The numbers were from 1 to 7 with numbers 2 to 5 signifying gale force winds expected from the northwest, southwest, northeast and southeast quadrants respectively.
In 1931, the signals were changed to 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 with signals 5 to 8 signifying gales from the four quadrants.
In 1956, the No. 3 Strong Wind Signal was introduced between the No. 1 Standby Signal and the gale signals. Since 1973, the current system comprising 1, 3, 8 NW, 8 SW, 8 NE, 8 SE, 9 and 10 has been in use.
"After taking a PhD in astronomy at the University of Jena in 1873, William Doberck accepted a position as superintendent of Markree Observatory in the west of Ireland. There he refurbished the great 13-inch refractor and spent nine years observing mostly double star systems, paying only such attention to meteorological monitoring as was required of his position. In 1883 he became the founding Director of a new observatory in Hong Kong, a post which he held for 24 years. His frustrations in attempting to continue his purely astronomical work, not assuaged by his combative and prickly personality, and in the face of the strictly practical demands of that mercantile society for comprehensive storm forecasting, are described. Finally, his observations in retirement in England, and his overall contribution to astronomy, are
summarised."A double star, in observational astronomy, is a pair of stars that appear close to each other in the sky as seen from Earth when viewed through an optical telescope. This can happen either because the pair forms a binary system of stars in mutual orbit, gravitationally bound to each other, or because it is an optical double, a chance alignment of two stars in the sky that lie at different distances. Binary stars are important to stellar
astronomers as knowledge of their motions allows direct calculation of stellar mass and other stellar parameters.
1904, Greenwich Mean Time was adopted as the basis for Hong Kong Time ---8 hours in advance of Greenwich Mean Time