Signal number 1 went up Thursday for Tropical Cyclone Noul. By Friday afternoon the Observatory was talking T3, maybe higher before the weekend's out. You know the drill by now. Shops start taping windows, the wet market uncles start moving stock indoors, and everyone's phone starts buzzing with the same question: is it going up or down, and do I still have to go to work tomorrow.

Here's the bit people forget every single typhoon season. The signal number isn't a weather report, it's an employment law. T8 means stay home, T3 means you're still expected at your desk getting rained on. So half of Hong Kong spends Saturday refreshing the Observatory site not because they care about wind speed, they care whether their boss can make them commute in it. Noul hasn't even properly arrived and the real storm, as always, is everyone trying to guess a number before their boss does.