Olympics: Typhoons loom over games

Up to three typhoons may strike during the Olympic Games competition in the Chinese coastal city of Qingdao, if Beijing weather experts are right.

The Beijing Meteorological Bureau today said five or six typhoons were forecast to form off the east coast of China during August, with two to three expected to make landfall.

"According to our forecasts, in August we may have two to three typhoons landing on our coastal areas and that might affect Shanghai, Qingdao and Hong Kong," said the deputy chief engineer of Beijing Meteorological Bureau, Wang Yubin.

While sailing is being held in Qingdao, the equestrian competition is in Hong Kong and football in Shanghai, Shenyang, Tianjin and Qinhuangdao as well as Beijing.

The prediction is in stark contrast to the Australian sailing team's own weather forecasts, which say the possibility of a typhoon before the end of August is highly unlikely.

Australian sailing team manager Michael Jones said their own weather forecaster from Darwin had advised that because a large typhoon had swept through Qingdao last week, it would take a long time for another to form.

But even if another did hit the city, the conditions would not be really severe, he said.

"All we got (in the last typhoon) was one day of reasonably strong winds, and that was no worse than a Saturday in Sydney in summer," he said.

"We have got no dramas and no preparations for a typhoon event."

Wang said they could identify the formation of typhoons from 170-110km away, with more accurate forecasts available 24-36 hours before expected landfall.

Wang Jianjie, deputy director of the weather bureau, also played down the impact of a typhoon on the Olympic co-host cities.

She said it would only bring heavy rain for a day or two and have a minimal disruption to competition.

"The typhoon influence will not be that long," she said.

"It's a limited period of time. Normally a typhoon can affect an area for one day or two, and the raining will not continue for the whole period.

"So first of all the typhoon cannot affect the whole of a series of events, it can only affect the events in a short period of time.

"Secondly, it will not coincide entirely with a certain event."

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