Summer's Officially Here, and the Weather's About to Get Weird
By Emersyn Lyon
What time is it? Summertime!
On May 18, Shanghai officially welcomed summer, reported the Shanghai Meteorological Bureau.
Last Thursday marked the first official day of summer after the lixia ended (seventh solar term according to East Asian calenders) occurred on May 5. Monday, May 22, was the fifth consecutive day that had a daily average temperature higher than 22 degrees Celsius.
According to records from 1981 to 2016, Shanghai usually steps into summer around May 28. This year, Shanghai summer began a full ten days early. Even so, the earliest summer ever recorded was May 6, 2009; the latest being June 24, 1995.
Further wetter and warmer days are headed to Shanghai as the city ushers in the solar term of xiaoman, the eighth solar term in the lunar calendar.
Now for the bad news. Three typhoons are predicted to hit Shanghai this summer. The typhoons are expected to be stronger than those experienced in previous years.
It won't just be a wet, windy summer either. To intensify the season even more, there will be hotter, steamier days as well.
Aside from the turbulent typhoons, the city will endure days with temperatures over 35 degrees Celsius for as long as four weeks. The Shanghai Meteorological Bureau said the extreme temperatures will climb as high as 40 degrees.
Back to the subject of rain—800 millimeters of rainfall are expected, compared to the average of 684 millimeters of previous years.
Director of Water Authority Bai Tinghui stated that Shanghai is at high risk of “disastrous weather like typhoons and strong rainstorms during the flood season.”
It gets worse as the weather bureau predicts that it is “very likely” for rainstorms to pummel Taihu Lake stream, which is upstream of the Huangpu River. This prediction flares warning signs for flooding in Shanghai.
On a more encouraging note, the Shanghai Flood Control Headquarters is working hard to prevent any damage to Shanghai. Thus far there have been two complete inspections of local levees as well as the mapping of 97 areas across the city that are at high risk of flooding in the coming months.
However, "there are still 135 kilometers of levees that are leaked or damaged," Bai said. “The flood prevention capability of the west part of the city remains weak.” According to Bai, this means that personal responsibility should be placed upon officials if damage or casualties should ensue due to flooding.
[Images via Spreephoto, NPR and Giphy]
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