CCTV9英语新闻：台风肆虐香港

The Hong Kong Observatory¹ has lowered the storm signal from No 8 to 3 this afternoon as Typhoon Utor started to move away from the city.
 肆虐香港的台风——尤特今天下午开始从香港撤离，气象局已经将风暴警报从8级降低到3级。
 
Strong winds and heavy downpours lashed² Hong Kong overnight.
 强风和暴雨肆虐了香港一整晚。
 After ravaging³ through the Philippines and displacing thousands of residents, Typhoon Utor turned towards Hong Kong Wednesday morning.
 台风一路鞭挞了菲律宾并导致那里千余人不得不离家出走躲避台风，进而于周三早上朝着香港方向进发。
 
According to the forecast, Utor will be closest to the city during the day, skirting around 250 kilometres to the south-west of Hong Kong.
 根据天气预报，台风--尤特当天对香港西南方向近250公里范围内的地方进行了侵袭。
 
Businesses and non-essential government services have closed. Classes in all schools and kindergartens were cancelled today. Trading on the stock exchange was also temporarily closed and is expected to resume in the afternoon.
 企业和非必要政府部门已经关闭。当天所有学校幼儿园放假。证劵交易也暂时关闭并预计将于下午重新开始交易。
 
Hundreds of flights have already been delayed or cancelled due to the storm.
 暴风雨导致近百航班被延误或取消。
 
Utor is the fifth tropical cyclone⁴ of the year that has required a typhoon signal to be raised. It is also the first severe typhoon to approach in 13 months.台风--尤特是今年出现的第五个需要进行台风警报的热带气旋。也是13个月以来登陆的首个强台风。
 

1 observatory   

n.天文台，气象台，瞭望台，观测台

参考例句：

• Guy's house was close to the observatory.盖伊的房子离天文台很近。
• Officials from Greenwich Observatory have the clock checked twice a day.格林威治天文台的职员们每天对大钟检查两次。

2 lashed   

adj.具睫毛的v.鞭打( lash的过去式和过去分词 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥

参考例句：

• The rain lashed at the windows. 雨点猛烈地打在窗户上。
• The cleverly designed speech lashed the audience into a frenzy. 这篇精心设计的演说煽动听众使他们发狂。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 ravaging   

毁坏( ravage的现在分词 )； 蹂躏； 劫掠； 抢劫

参考例句：

• It is believed that in fatigue there is a repeated process of ravaging the material. 据认为，在疲劳中，有一个使材料毁坏的重复过程。
• I was able to capture the lion that was ravaging through town. 我能逮住正在城里肆虐的那头狮子。

4 cyclone   

n.旋风，龙卷风

参考例句：

• An exceptionally violent cyclone hit the town last night.昨晚异常猛烈的旋风吹袭了那个小镇。
• The cyclone brought misery to thousands of people.旋风给成千上万的人带来苦难。