Tropical storm Lionrock, the sixth of the season, will bring heavy rain and strong gales to Shenzhen today and tomorrow as it was forecast to make landfall between Shanwei, Guangdong, and Xiamen, Fujian, between late last night and early today (Sept 2).

Lionrock was moving at a speed of 83 kilometers per hour and was 520 kilometers from the city at 2 p.m. yesterday, the city's meteorological observatory said.

Lionrock is one of three tropical storms to affect China's east and southeast coasts this week, following tropical storm Namtheun, which hit Fujian on Tuesday, leading to the evacuation of 138,000 people, and Typhoon Kompasu, which stranded 170 tourists Monday in Nanji Island, Zhejiang.

A dozen flights between Shenzhen and Shanghai were delayed yesterday.

Kompasu, which means "compass" in Japanese, was expected to hit South Korea after leaving the Zhejiang coast yesterday.

Shenzhen's meteorological observatory said the storms were influencing one another, increasing the uncertainty of their direction, strength and duration.

The China Meteorological Administration (CMA) sounded an orange alarm — second in urgency to red — Tuesday.

"It is rare for three storms to affect China's costal areas at the same time," said Chen Zhenlin, director of the disaster relief and public service department of the CMA. He added that the typhoon and tropical storms developed in just 40 hours after the first one took shape Sunday.

(By Han Ximin)