GEOGRAPHY AND CLIMATE
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Rainfall was normal for the first three months; but thereafter it fell below average, and the year's total of 64.93 inches was 19.83 inches less than normal. The wettest month was June when 16.29 inches fell during twenty-one days.
During the latter half of March the harbour and coastal areas were often covered by fog, which drifted inland during the early morning and adversely affected both aircraft and shipping schedules. On one occasion Waglan Island experi- enced continuous fog for seventy-two hours.
Hot and sunny weather persisted from April to October, and this was the warmest April yet recorded by the Observatory. The previous highest April temperature of 88.6°F was exceeded on seven occasions, on one of which 92.1°F was recorded. Most days in June and July had ten hours of sunshine with maximum temperatures above 90°F, while the highest temperature of the year, 93.8°F, was reached in August. From November onwards, the weather became colder and drier under the influence of a persistent anticyclone centred over the mainland of China.
Several depressions and typhoons approached within four hundred miles of Hong Kong and one of these passed westward only one hundred and sixty miles to the south of the Colony.
GEOLOGY
Hong Kong Island and the New Territories consist of numerous rugged and irregular islands with deeply dissected peninsulas. A general picture of the area is that of an upland terrain which has been invaded by the sea.
The uplands and mountains are eroded remnants of rock formations, in which relative resistance of rock and structure through differential erosion are clearly recorded. As the region lies within the northern limits of the tropics, frosts even on Taimoshan are of the rarest occurrence, and hence weathering depends almost completely upon the chemical
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