Hong Kong - Hong Kong on Saturday had its coldest New Year's Day for more than 40 years as temperatures in the normally balmy territory plunged to as low as three degrees Celsius.
Urban temperatures fell to 6.4 degrees Celsius while in the rural New Territories, temperatures of three degrees Celsius - the lowest on record for this time of year - were recorded on Saturday morning.
Cold shelters have opened across the territory of 6.8 million people, which is ill-equipped to deal with low temperatures, and welfare workers were distributing blankets to elderly people.
The cold snap is being caused by a winter monsoon that has been blown down from northern China, where seasonal temperatures usually plunge below zero at the end of December and beginning of January.
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The coldest temperature recorded in Hong Kong on a New Year's Day before this year was six degrees Celsius in 1988. Overall, meteorologists said it is the coldest New Year's Day for more than 40 years.
Temperatures were expected to gradually climb back up to seasonal norms of as high as 20 degrees Celsius by the middle of the week. - Sapa-dpa
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