Typhoons in South China Sea make for wetter, gloomier August in Hong Kong

The city experienced a wetter-than-usual August, thanks to a number of typhoons in the South China Sea and the western North Pacific, statistics from the Hong Kong Observatory showed on Friday.

There were only 148.5 hours of sunshine recorded last month, about 21 per cent lower than the normal figure of 188.9 hours. The monthly total rainfall, on the other hand, reached 532.7mm, marking a 23 per cent rise from the expected figure of 432.2mm.

At the beginning of the month, the city confronted its first major typhoon of the year. After skirting past the north coast of Luzon in the Philippines, Typhoon Nida intensified from a severe tropical storm to a typhoon and brushed past the city. In the few days following Nida’s departure, the weather remained overcast with heavy squally showers.

Shortly after the sun broke through on August 5, Hong Kong’s weather was once again disrupted by a broad area of low pressure extended from the western North Pacific all the way to the northern part of the South China Sea. Sunshowers and intense thunderstorms around noon on August 9 brought more than 4,000 cloud-to-ground lightning strokes to Hong Kong. Cloudy and showery conditions persisted for the next seven days.

Meanwhile, a few weak depressions were hovering over the south China coastal waters. One of them eventually developed into tropical storm Dianmu off the coast of western Guangdong, which resulted in windy conditions and squally showers all the way to August 17 and 18.