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With frequent replenishment of the winter monsoon, February 2016 was cooler than usual. The monthly mean temperature was 15.5 degrees, 1.3 degrees below the normal figure of 16.8 degrees. The month was also drier than usual with 24.8 millimetres of rainfall, only about 46 per cent of the normal figure of 54.4 millimetres. However, due to an extremely rainy January, the accumulated rainfall of 291.7 millimetres in the first two months of the year was more than three times the normal figure of 79.1 millimetres for the same period.
Under the influence of an intense winter monsoon, the weather in Hong Kong was cold and cloudy with rain patches for the first three days of the month. The temperature at the Hong Kong Observatory (HKO) in the morning on February 2 fell to a minimum of 9.4 degrees, the lowest of the month. With the arrival of a dry continental air mass, local weather turned fine on February 4. With even drier air from the north spreading towards the south China coastal areas, it remained sunny with cold mornings in the next four days as daytime relative humidity dropped below 30 per cent. Frost was also reported in Ta Kwu Ling and Hok Tau in the morning of Chinese New Year Day on February 8.
With the winter monsoon moderating gradually and replaced by a moist easterly airstream, local temperatures climbed during the Chinese New Year holiday period. The weather became cloudy with a few rain patches on February 10. It was warm, humid and foggy with the visibility at Waglan Island occasionally falling to around 100 metres in the next three days. With sunny periods during the day, the temperature at the HKO on February 13 rose to a maximum of 25.9 degrees, the highest of the month.
After a warm and humid morning on February 14, a cold front crossed the coast of Guangdong in the afternoon that day, bringing appreciably cooler weather to the territory. The weather remained cloudy and cold with rain patches on February 15 to 18. A replenishment of the winter monsoon reached Hong Kong in the night of February 19 and the arrival of dry continental air brought some sunny periods the next day.
With another replenishment of the winter monsoon on February 23, the weather in Hong Kong stayed mainly cloudy and cool with some rain patches up to February 26. Affected by a continental airstream, it then turned fine and dry towards the end of the month.
There was no tropical cyclone over the South China Sea and the western North Pacific in the month.
Details of issuance and cancellation of various warnings/signals in the month are summarised in Table 1. Monthly meteorological figures and departures from normal for February are tabulated in Table 2.
Ends/Wednesday, March 2, 2016
Issued at HKT 15:28
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