Society
Beijingers feel the heat, finally
By Wang Qian (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-05-03 09:39
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BEIJING - A sudden heat wave brought most Beijingers outside during the May Day holiday and pushed the temperature to 32.2 C on Saturday, the hottest May Day in four decades.
Be forewarned though, rainy days are about to cool off the coming week.
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A foreign girl dances on Saturday in Tongzhou Canal Park in Beijing. The temperature hit 32.2 Catnoon, the hottest May Day since 1966. Zou Hong / China Daily |
The capital will welcome rain in Tuesday night, along with a slight dip in temperature, said Guo Hu, head of the Beijing Meteorological Bureau.
Guo said Beijing experienced a sudden surge of 20 C over the past week, but the temperature will bounce back and forth before the real summer settles in.
In meteorological terms, summer means the temperature surpasses 22 C for five continuous days, so it is too early to say the capital has entered the summer season.
On Sunday, the mercury in Beijing hit 31 C, said Sun Jisong, the chief forecaster in the capital's meteorological bureau. But the sky is a little yellow due to the coming cold air, which is bringing dust, wind and rain, he said.
Many residents donned T-shirts, shorts and skirts to embrace the "summer" May Day holiday.
Wu Xiaosong, a Beijing photographer wearing jeans and a white T-shirt with jacket in hand, said he was soaked with sweat on Sunday afternoon.
"The summer seems to have come overnight," he said, adding most of the people he shot pictures of on Saturday looked ready for summer.
With the temperature surge during the May Day holiday, cotton-like fluff coming off poplar and willow trees in late April and May every year in Beijing is bringing the city a "spring time snow".
The fluff, known as catkins, comes from small seed pods that burst as the weather warms up. They fly everywhere, bringing fun as well as trouble to local residents.
"I bought an ice cream to cool myself down, but my first bite was this white, cotton-like stuff," a local resident Wang Yan said on Sunday afternoon, pointing at her melting ice cream.
The sudden rise in temperature in the capital, a long-lasting drought in Southwest China and a rare cold wave sweeping northern parts of the country all tell of frequent extreme weather.
Wu Disheng, a senior expert with the State Oceanic Administration, told Guangzhou Daily on Sunday that the weather phenomenon El Nino in the Pacific Ocean in 2009 has led to the recent extreme weather events.
El Nino is characterized by warming in the Pacific Ocean, which occurs every two to seven years and may last for about a year. It is often associated with floods, droughts and other abnormal weather events.
Wu said the warming temperature in the Pacific Ocean caused the warm air mass to move into Southwest China, raising the temperature and leading to the severe drought.
"The climate feature this year is that average temperatures across the country will be lower than usual, with more precipitation and a large possibility of floods," Wu was quoted as saying.
The China Meteorological Administration said heavy rains will hit Shaanxi, Sichuan, Henan, Hubei and Hunan on Tuesday and rainstorms will later hit some parts of South China, with heavy rains in Liaoning, Jinlin and Inner Mongolia.
Besides floods, seven to nine typhoons are expected to hit China in 2010, more than 2009, due to the movement of a warm air mass near the Pacific Ocean and the South China Sea, Wu said.
