HK's record-breaking typhoon season spurs calls for more climate-ready action

Analysts say climate change causing more intense storms with greater impact on city

- Magdalene Fung Hong Kong Correspondent

This city is experiencing a record-breaking typhoon season in 2025, seeing the most number of such storms in a year since its weather agency's records started more than a century ago.

Typhoon Matmo, which passed near the city on Oct 4 and 5, was the 12th tropical cyclone in 2025 for which a warning signal was hoisted in the city – the highest number in a single calendar year since records began in 1917, according to the Hong Kong Observatory.

Historically, the city experiences around six typhoons annually, according to a City University of Hong Kong study.

Matmo came just over a week after Super Typhoon Ragasa pummelled Hong Kong on Sept 24, causing costly damage to buildings and power outages in some areas, although the city's early planning and preparations beforehand meant less damage than from a similarly severe storm in 2018.

One of the most powerful typhoons in Hong Kong's history, Ragasa's intensity was likely worsened by human-driven climate change, according to a study released by French research group ClimaMeter in late September.

Indeed, while climate change is not thought to have increased the number of hurricanes, typhoons and storms worldwide, it is causing them to grow in intensity, bringing about a greater adverse impact on the city's environment and the lives of its people, said analysts.

They warned that Hong Kong needs to invest in stronger climate adaptation measures urgently to mitigate the potential harm of these storms.

"Typhoons are no longer seasonal anomalies - they're structural threats," Professor Benjamin Horton, dean of the City University of Hong Kong's school of energy and environment, told The Straits Times.