The average annual temperature in Macau last year was 23.3 degrees Celsius, 0.5 degrees Celsius above the climatological normal, and was the third hottest year since 1952, the Meteorological and Geophysical Bureau (SMG) said in a statement on Sunday.

The highest average temperature in Macau occurred in 2019, at 23.6 degrees Celsius, the observatory said.

The highest monthly temperature last year was recorded in October, at 35.2 degrees Celsius, which broke the record for the same period of the previous year.

The number of hot nights last year was 15 days, 3.5 days above the climatological normal, while there were only 26 cold days, 13 days less than the climatological normal, of which the number of cold days in February was only one day, the second fewest in the same period of recent years.

The observatory said the increase in the number of hot nights and the decrease in the number of cold days were signals of climate warming.

According to the observatory, a total of five tropical cyclones affected Macau last year, among which Super Typhoon “Saola” was the fourth typhoon that Tropical Cyclone Signal No.10 needed to be hoisted since 2017.

Super Typhoon “Hato” was hoisted in 2017, “Mangkhut” in 2018 and Severe Tropical Storm “Higos” in 2020, all of which required the hoisting of Signal No.10.

According to the observatory’s historical data, only four No.10 typhoon signals were hoisted in the 49 years from 1968 to 2016, which showed that the frequency of extreme weather events in recent years was on the rise.

The observatory underlined that October was also a particularly rainy month, which recorded the third highest daily precipitation of that month in 71 years, and last year’s monthly cumulative rainfall was 295.4 mm, about four times the climatological normal. 

This image provided by the Meteorological and Geophysical Bureau (SMG) on Sunday sums up last year’s weather data in Portuguese.