Appendix F.
REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR OF THE ROYAL OBSERVATORY,
HONG KONG, FOR THE YEAR 1939.
I.-GROUNDS, BUILDINGS AND INSTRUMENTS.
The Beckley instrument was dismantled at Victoria Peak on the 5th January. A modern head for the Dines Baxendell Anemograph was installed at the Observatory on the 11th January. Registration by Dines anemographs was commenced at Victoria Peak on the 19th January, and at Kai Tak Aerodrome on the 29th March.
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 by a Dines-Baxendell anemograph, 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 7 a.m. and 2 p.m. when conditions were favourable.
3. The principal features of the weather in 1939 were:-
(a) an excess of rainfall in April and May, and a deficiency in the succeeding five months.
(b) the typhoon of November 23rd. This was the only occasion on which the wind reached gale force in Hong Kong during the year, a maximum gust of 74 m.p.h. being registered. Although the typhoon was not a severe one, it was of great interest since the calm centre passed directly over the Observatory for the first time on record.
(c) a drought which began on November 27th, and was still unbroken at the close of the year. The total sunshine registered in December (269 hours) was a record for the month.
4. The tracks of 32 typhoons which occurred in the Far East in 1939 are given in plates which will be included with the Meteorological Results for 1939, now in the press. The following tables give summaries of the meteorological data published monthly in the Government Gazette during the year :-