(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-02-18 15:11

HONG KONG -- The Hong Kong Observatory on Monday suspended a cold weather warning that has been in force for a record-breaking 25 consecutive days.

It was the longest duration for the severe weather warning since it was launched in 1999, based on downtown minimum temperatures below 12 degrees as well as humidity and wind force, said Tam Cheuk-ming, a senior scientific officer at the Observatory.

With minimum temperature at 8 degrees Celsius, it was also one of the longest cold spells the southern Chinese territory since local weather records began in 1885.

People in the sub-tropical city were seen taking off the thick clothes they had been often wearing in the past three weeks and putting on lighter ones to suit the local sunshine and minimum temperature that went higher to 13.7 degrees in Hong Kong.

"The winter monsoon is expected to be replaced by an easterly airstream midweek," the Observatory said in a forecast, adding that minimum temperatures on the Hong Kong Island were expected to stay above 14 degrees for the rest of this week.

The exceptionally long cold spell, topping the previous record of 204 consecutive hours for the cold weather warning to be in force in 2004, was a result of cold air from Siberia moving south to reach central and southern China incessantly while moist air was transported from the South China Sea and even as far as the Indian Ocean.

The unusually cold weather is also part of La Nina, during which the sea surface temperatures across the equatorial eastern central Pacific Ocean are lower than normal, the Hong Kong Observatory said.

The cold spell caused losses to Hong Kong's sea farmers, put at millions of dollars, and brought snow and icing weather to south China, disrupting transport there.