Appendix F.
REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR OF THE ROYAL OBSERVATORY, HONG KONG,
FOR THE YEAR 1937.
I-GROUNDS, BUILDINGS AND INSTRUMENTS.
The Beckley anemograph at Victoria Peak was seriously damaged in the typhoon of September 1-2; repairs were completed and the instrument was again brought into use on 24th December.
II-METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS.
2. Automatic records of the temperature of the air and evaporation were obtained with the resistance thermometers and thread recorder. Direction and velocity of the wind were recorded with Beckley and Dines-Baxendell anemographs, rainfall by a Casella pluviograph, sunshine by a Campbell-Stokes universal recorder and barometric pressure by a Marvin barograph. Eye observations of barometric pressure, temperature and cloud were made hourly, and of the direction of cloud motion every three hours. Observations of pilot balloons were made with a Watts 14 inch prismatic theodolite at 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. when conditions were favourable.
3. The principal features of the weather in 1937 were:-
(a) an excess of temperature, the year being the warmest since 1915. The mean temperature was above normal in every month, and the mean for the year was 73.3 deg. F against a normal of 71.9 deg.
(b) the destructive typhoon of September 2nd. The typhoon passed close to the south side of Hong Kong Island on a WNW track between 3 and 4 a.m. At the Observatory the minimum barometer reading, reduced to mean sea level, was 28.298 inches, which is the lowest recorded since observations commenced in 1884. Several gusts exceeded 125 m.p.h., and it seems probable that the typhoon was the most violent which has ever visited the Colony.
The tracks of 21 typhoons which occurred in the Far East in 1937 are given in plates which will be included with the Meteorological Results for 1937, now in the press. The following table gives a summary of the meteorological data published monthly in the Government Gazette during the year: