Early flower blooms in warm weather add to sellers’ woes at festival fairs

Unusually warm weather in Hong Kong has forced flower sellers at Lunar New Year fairs to contend with premature blooms while also navigating a retail landscape where heavy foot traffic masked a tightening of local purse strings. On Sunday, the Observatory recorded a maximum temperature of 26.9 degrees Celsius (80.4 Fahrenheit) at its headquarters in Tsim Sha Tsui, matching the record set in 2010 for the same day in the lunar calendar. “Winter has become like summer, which is not a good...

By Lam Ka-sing