The Meteorological and Geophysical Bureau (known by its Portuguese initials SMG) has deemed 2024 to be one of the hottest, wettest and stormiest years on record in the SAR, attributing the extreme weather patterns to climate change.
The number of hot days – that is, days when temperatures exceeded 33ºC – stood at 42 last year, almost 11 days more than the city’s average. The number of cold days, where temperatures remained at 12ºC or below, was a mere 28 – or 11 days fewer than average.
SMG’s report noted that 2024 would likely tie with 2019 as the world’s hottest year on record. Macao’s average temperature for the year was 23.6ºC, or 0.8ºC above the global average. The month of April was particularly noteworthy, smashing three temperature records for the month. It was the hottest April on record (averaging 25.3ºC) and saw record-breaking average maximum and minimum monthly temperatures of 28ºC and 23.4ºC, respectively.
[See more: Warming temperatures could soon cost the global economy US$38 trillion a year]
Seven tropical cyclones affected Macao last year, the strongest being Super Typhoon Yagi in September. While damage in the city was minimal, the storm caused devastation in the mainland and parts of Southeast Asia.
SMG also noted that November was punctuated with a rare cluster of tropical cyclones: Super Typhoon Yinxing, Typhoon Toraji and Super Typhoon Man-yi, all coming unseasonably late in the year. The same month was also the second wettest November Macao had experienced since records began in 1952, receiving 176.6 millimetres of rainfall.
April, meanwhile, brought the city’s first hailstorm in more than a decade. Hail is very rare in Macao; there were only four recorded cases of hail between 1952 and 2011.
