HONG KONG – Hong Kong experienced its warmest April on record last month, with a monthly mean temperature of 26.4 degrees Celsius – 3.4 degrees higher than usual, according to the Hong Kong Observatory.

The hottest day of the month was April 13, when the temperatures rose to a maximum of 31.9 degrees Celsius thanks to plenty of sunshine, the forecaster said in a monthly weather report on Friday.

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The hot weather was due to a warmer than normal sea surface temperature and stronger than usual southerly flow in the lower atmosphere over the northern part of the South China Sea, it said.

“Affected by a number of troughs of low pressure, the month was also wetter than usual with a total rainfall of 257.1 millimeters, about 68 percent more than the normal figure of 153.0 mm,” reads the HKO report.

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The accumulated rainfall recorded in the first four months of the year was 289.5 mm, about 4 percent below the normal figure of 300.4 mm for the same period, it added.