Hong Kong to see cold snap from Tuesday with lows of 16°C following hottest October on record

Hongkongers will experience a cold snap this week following the hottest October on record.

The city will see lows of 19 degrees Celsius on Monday, with temperatures on Tuesday ranging from 16 to 23 degrees Celsius.

A strong cold front will cross China’s southern coast, bringing dry and cool weather to the territory: “Under the influence of the intense northeast monsoon associated with a cold front, it will be windy and temperatures will fall appreciably over Guangdong today… The temperature difference between day and night will be rather large.”

However, the mercury will begin to rise after Wednesday with showers expected over the weekend as Tropical Cyclone Cempaka arrives in Japan: “The monsoon is expected to moderate in the latter part of this week, temperatures will rise over the region… Upper-air disturbances will bring showers to southern China towards the weekend.”

It comes after the Observatory recorded the highest-ever monthly mean maximum temperature in October of 30.5 degrees Celsius.

“Mainly due to a weaker-than-normal northeast monsoon and a stronger-than-normal upper-air anticyclone over southern China, and set against the backdrop of climate warming and a very strong El Niño event that may persist into early next year, October 2026 was unseasonably warm in Hong Kong,” it said last week in a press release.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned that the intensity and frequency of heatwaves have continued to increase since the 1950s due to human-caused climate change. The prevalence of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide – which trap heat in the atmosphere – raises the planet’s surface temperature, with hotter, longer heatwaves putting lives at risk.

See also: How extreme heat became the deadliest silent killer among world weather disasters

Hong Kong has already warmed by 1.7 degrees Celsius since the Industrial Revolution, research NGO Berkeley Earth says. Heat and humidity may reach lethal levels for protracted periods by the end of the century, according to a 2023 study, making it impossible to stay outdoors in some parts of the world.

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Tom founded Hong Kong Free Press in 2015 as the city's first crowdfunded newspaper. He has a BA in Communications and New Media from Leeds University and an MA in Journalism from the University of Hong Kong. He previously founded an NGO advocating for domestic worker rights, and has contributed to the BBC, Deutsche Welle, Al-Jazeera and others.

Tom leads HKFP – raising funds, managing the team and navigating risk – whilst regularly speaking on press freedom, ethics and media funding at industry events, schools and conferences around the world.