HONG KONG ANNUAL REPORT, 1953
Shanghai. When the Colony itself is threatened, the local storm warning system is brought into use, and warnings are distributed as widely as possible by means of visual signals, telephone, Radio Hong Kong and Rediffusion.
area.
Forecasting in Hong Kong is a difficult task, for there is a lack of weather information from much of the surrounding Valuable co-operation is, however, given by ships at sea and aircraft in flight, which transmit on the average about one hundred weather reports to the forecasting office each day. This year, for the first, time regular pilot-balloon observations of upper winds have been carried out on board a Hong Kong merchant ship at sea.
Upper-air soundings to great heights are made daily at the radio-sonde station, attached to the Observatory, in order to provide data on winds and temperatures aloft for high-flying aircraft.
Climatological observations have been maintained at the Observatory for nearly 70 years, the only break in the series being during the Japanese occupation. Large numbers of inquiries on climate and weather are dealt with, and research. is carried out on various meteorological problems. The pressing demands for weather services, particularly to meet the needs of aviation, have led to a great expansion in the work of the department since the war, and there has been little opportunity for purely scientific activities. It has been possible, however, to re-equip the Observatory as a seismological station.
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