Post #325516 by The Gnomon on Tue, Aug 14, 2007 6:31 AM

I don't think so. I just dug this up.

By 1963, the development works for new water supply sources had not been completed causing the Government to worry that it would be unable to provide people with sufficient fresh water. The low rainfall further aggravated the situation. From May 1962 to April 1963, only 1,439 mm of rainfall was recorded, which was 761 mm less than the average annual rainfall of 2,200-mm. On 31 March 1963, Hong Kong's reservoirs only held 5.355 billion gallons of water, which was only 51% of the total storage capacity. These factors indicated that Hong Kong desperately needed the wet season rainfall to fill up the reservoirs. Unfortunately, April and May had very little rainfall, and the Government was forced to exercise water rationing on 2 May 1963. This allowed the public 3 hours of water supply every day. On 16 May, the restrictions were further tightened so people only received 4 hours of water provision on alternate days. By 1 June the water stored in reservoirs had declined to 175,000,000 gallons, only 1.7% of the total storage capacity! The Government declared that it could only supply water to the public for 4 hours, every 4 days. Restrictions remained in force for nearly a year until 27 May 1964, when Typhoon Viola struck Hong Kong, bringing with it heavy downpours.

I don't think rainmakers can take credit for typhoons.