Hong Kong records highest ever temperature of 36.9C amid Typhoon Dolphin

Hong Kong has officially recorded its highest ever temperature as Typhoon Dolphin swept warm air over the city, the meteorological service said.

The city’s weather observatory posted a temperature of 36.9C on Sunday, the highest recorded since records began in 1884, the Hong Kong Observatory said in the afternoon.

The approaching storm has fuelled intense heat in the region over the weekend and triggered mass flight cancellations and evacuations along China’s east coast before making landfall there on Sunday evening.

The previous record for Hong Kong was set at 36.6C on 22 August 2017, before Typhoon Hato hit.

Figures recorded at the observatory’s headquarters are the official reference point for the city’s records, but temperatures elsewhere in the densely built Chinese finance hub topped 39C.

A weather station in Sheung Shui, in the city’s north, recorded 39.8C, the highest temperature logged in Hong Kong since automatic weather stations were introduced in the 1980s, the observatory said.

“With Tropical Cyclone Dolphin moving towards the vicinity of Zhejiang and moving inland, its outer subsiding air will persistently bring extremely hot weather to the territory today to Tuesday,” the forecaster said.

The observatory issued a “very hot weather warning” on Sunday, advising citizens to drink water and avoid vigorous outdoor physical activities.

Typhoon Dolphin has made landfall in the Chinese mainland, about 1,000km (620 miles) north-east of Hong Kong.

Dolphin made landfall near Yuhuan in Zhejiang province at about 5:30pm (0930 GMT) on Sunday, China’s meteorological authorities said. It brought maximum sustained winds of 94mph (151 km/h) near its centre at landfall, equivalent to a category 1 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale.

Scientists say human-driven climate change is making extreme heat events more frequent and more intense worldwide.