Hong Kong  - Global warming and urbanization were named Monday as factors for high-rise Hong Kong recording its warmest-ever February.

The sub-tropical city of 7 million recorded a median temperature 20.5 degrees Celsius in February, 4.2 degrees higher than the average for the month over the last 30 years.

It was the highest average temperature recorded since records began 125 years ago and one degree higher than the previous record set only in 2007. Hong Kong last year recorded its warmest autumn.

A spokesman for the Hong Kong Observatory, which monitors the city's weather, said that global warming and the creep of urbanization were two factors in the gradually rising temperatures.

Experts predict that cool winters in the former British colony could all but disappear by the 2020s, with temperature falling below 12 degrees Celsius for only one day a year or less. (dpa)