During a press briefing on 23 March 2026, Dr Chan Pak-wai, Director of the Hong Kong Observatory, reviewed last year’s weather, elaborated on the outlook for this year’s weather, and introduced the Observatory’s new services.
The Observatory launched a new webpage, “Coastal Sea Level (Trial)”, and updated the “Real-time Tide Chart” page in the “MyObservatory” mobile app, providing total water level forecasts for the next 12 hours for 14 tide stations across Hong Kong. This allows the public to be aware of changes in coastal sea levels in advance. The total water level forecast does not include wave effects such as overtopping waves. However, considering that overtopping waves may also cause coastal inundation, the Observatory will include overtopping wave forecasts in tropical cyclone warnings when significant overtopping waves are expected to affect Hong Kong, while also informing the public regarding which stretches of the coast may be affected.
In addition, the “MyObservatory” app will gradually launch trial versions of location-specific weather information for several cities in the Republic of Korea and Thailand in the second half of this year, providing the latest official local weather information to help the public in preparing for their travel plans.
To enhance information services for assisting the public in coping with the hot and humid summer, the Observatory will introduce “Hong Kong Heat Index” data for more regions on its website in the second quarter of this year, reflecting the combined effects of temperature, humidity, wind speed, and solar radiation in various districts.
With the increasing maturity of artificial intelligence, the Observatory will gradually incorporate relevant technologies to assist in video production of short videos such as “Weather Family” festival weather outlooks, to enrich content and enhance video quality.
During the press briefing, Dr Chan Pak-wai, Director of the Hong Kong Observatory (centre), together with Mr Lee Lap-shun, Assistant Director (Radiation Monitoring and Assessment) (second from left), Ms Sandy Song Man-kuen, Assistant Director (Development, Research and Administration) (second from right), Mr Chan Sai-tick, Assistant Director (Aviation Weather Services) (left), and Mr Cheng Yuen-chung, Assistant Director (Forecasting and Warning Services) (right), reported on the latest services of the Hong Kong Observatory.
