Hong Kong experienced a hotter and drier September than usual, driven by a stronger-than-normal upper-air anticyclone over southern China, the city’s weather agency said on Monday.

The monthly mean minimum temperature in September reached 27.1 degrees Celsius, 1.0 C above the normal and the fifth highest on record for the month, according to the Hong Kong Observatory.

The monthly mean temperature and the mean maximum temperature stood at 28.8 C and 31.8 C respectively, which were 0.9 C and 1.3 C above their respective normal, the observatory said, adding that both were one of the 10th highest on record for September.  

Relative humidity for the month averaged 74 percent, four percentage points below the normal of 78 percent and one of the sixth lowest on record for September. Rainfall recorded during the month was only 94.3 millimeters, about 29 percent of the normal of 321.4 mm.

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However, the accumulated rainfall in the first nine months of the year was 2,451.9 mm, about nine percent above the normal of 2,242.8 mm for the same period.

Under the influence of an anticyclone aloft, local weather remained generally fine and dry during the day from Sept 18 to 20, while similar weather conditions were recorded during the last six days of the month as a northeast monsoon moderated with an anticyclone aloft, according to the observatory.

Fueled by showers, the lowest temperature of the month recorded at the observatory’s headquarters was 25.5 C during the early hours on Sept 11.

Throughout September, only one tropical cyclone, Saudel, affected the territory. The Standby Signal No 1 remained in force from Aug 31 to Sept 4.

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After re-intensifying into a tropical depression on the last day of August, Saudel skirted about 200 kilometers southeast of Hong Kong and intensified into a tropical storm the following day. Making landfall over Zhangzhou, Southeast China’s Fujian province, on Sept 3, it moved across the eastern part of inland Guangdong province and weakened gradually.