Trial by typhoon shows city's resilience

Exceptional threat

How did a single typhoon unleash such severe force upon East China's coast?

Scientists point to a complex confluence of regional climate anomalies and large-scale atmospheric dynamics that transformed Dolphin into what they described as an "exceptional" threat.

Before Dolphin made landfall, Jiang Man, chief forecaster at the Shanghai Meteorological Observatory, described what made this typhoon different from previous ones.

She said it has had a very long active period, packed strong winds, and covered a massive area. Its level-7 wind circle stretched over 400 kilometers from the typhoon center.

The typhoon's cloud and rain bands were extremely well-developed, carrying massive amounts of water vapor that brought prolonged strong winds that lasted for days. These were paired with extremely heavy, sharp downpours instead of a quick, short storm as usually happens, Jiang said.

Wu Liguang, a distinguished professor at the department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at Fudan University, told Wenhui Daily that Dolphin's destructive potential was built during its long transit across the ocean. Tracking across the Pacific Ocean for nearly two weeks, it spent a prolonged period over warm open water, continually accumulating energy.

The developing super El Nino's expansion across the Western Pacific also played a role in warming the ocean. This shift fostered typhoon formation over ocean areas that have historically maintained lower sea surface temperatures, extending Dolphin's energy-charging corridor before it made landfall.

Also, research published in the China Water Resources journal examining Shanghai's precipitation trends from 2005 to 2024 revealed that the city is experiencing a century-high peak in annual precipitation, increasing at an average rate of 16.1 mm per year. Severe hourly rainfall is transitioning into a high-frequency incident, the report said.