The sweet drink, which can be found on nearly every street in Hong Kong was the clear favourite and topped the list of typhoon names chosen by residents for the city’s forecaster to keep in reserve.
The HKO has recently revealed the top 20 names for typhoons.
With 15,750 votes, Milktea took the lead, followed closely by Tsing-ma (the name of the world’s longest suspension bridge that connects Tsing Yi and Ma Wan), with 15,127 votes. In third place with 14,810 votes was Fo-lung also known as fire dragon.
Some of the other winning names in¬cluded Dim-sum, Red-bean and Siu-long (kung fu screen legend Bruce Lee’s Chinese name). Hong Kong’s Treefrog and signature white jade orchid tree, known as Bak-lan, were also firm favourites with the voters!
Pui Pui, the saltwater crocodile who lives in Hong Kong’s Wetland Park, beat Ocean Park pandas An An and Jia Jia to enter the top 20, joined by the Ocean Park deceased killer whale, Hoi-wai.
The poll which was held to mark the weather forecaster’s 140th anniversary, was hailed a great success due the public’s response, who have been voting since the middle of December.
A list of the top 20 winning names will be submitted to the typhoon committee set up by the United Nations body, Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, and the World Meteo¬rological Organisation.
The 14 members who consist of Cambodia, China, North Korea, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, the Philip¬pines, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, the United States, Hong Kong and Macau special administrative regions will pick ten names from those presented. Names are then used on a rotational basis.
Committee members may request some names are retired, especially when typhoons incur economic losses or large casualties. When this happens the member who has provided that name will propose a replacement for consideration.
