Results tagged “weather”

Shanghai Daily tells us that earlier this morning, snow sprinkled Shanghai for the first time this winter... just days later than they thought it would. We must've missed it, since by the time we woke up and got out in the street, there was nothing for us but damp sidewalks and dreary clouds. Alas - if anyone took pictures, we'd love to see 'em. But with Shanghai's first snow comes news that the cold front should be passing - temperatures will be rising to 9C and hover at around 10C for the weekend. Yippee.

It looks like our unseasonably beautiful October was the weather gods' way of offering us a bit of kindness before smacking us down with cold (ice cold) fists of fury. According to weather experts, Shanghai may now be heading into its earliest winter this decade. Usually, winter arrives in early or mid-December, but if this cold front continues, the daily average temperature would not have exceeded 10C since Friday and winter will officially be declared tomorrow - just in time for the first predicted snow of the season! So bundle up, especially since it seems these low temps will stay with us until the weekend.

Though Shanghai's latitude makes it pretty hard for us to see snowfall, northern China has been blanketed by it for days. As it's pretty rare for the area around Beijing to get snow this early in the cold season, the torrents have brought about some complications and tragedies, but also joy.

If you rolled out of bed this today clawing at your throat like a French legionnaire in the Sahara, you might not be crazy: it might be the air. This jaw-dropping photo from NASA (taken November 6) charts the progress of a temperature inversion (i.e. smog bank) that has been trapped on China's coast for the past week.

Shanghaiist has spent the past few days bundled up inside to avoid the front that has chilled our city virtually overnight. Good news, though: temperatures are supposed to rise to 20 degrees Celsius tomorrow, and should be even warmer by the weekend. It'll be as if this cold spell never really happened, right?

Brrr, did it get chilly over here or what? While Saturday's Halloween night was still unseasonably warm, it seems like someone flipped a switch on November 1, causing the city's temperature to drop a good 10 degrees. Today, it dropped another six, with temperatures hovering between 8 and 12 degrees Celsius. But no need to get out your thick winter coats yet - according to Weather.com, this cold snap will only be staying with us until Wednesday, when temperatures will return to a much more reasonable high teens.

If you've found yourself commenting to your friends, family, or coworkers on the prolonged warm weather, you probably wouldn't be surprised to know that Shanghai's summers are actually getting longer by the year. A lot longer, in fact. Shanghai Daily reports that since 1970, the length of summer has increased by 50%, from a measly 100 days back then to a whopping average of 150+ days a year. So if you crunch the numbers, that means summer takes up more than 40% of the year.

On a totally unrelated note to China, for those of you that are wondering what you can do to help victims of the tropical storm Ondoy (Ketsana), Red Cross Philippines is now accepting donations via Paypal at give@redcross.org.ph. And if you specifically wish to help children, donate online via UNICEF USA.

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• This is pretty damn cool: Two Iranians are reshuffling scenes from Persepolis, a black comedy cartoon by Iranian-French emigre Marjane Satrapi, into a story about President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed victory. Where are they working from? GOOD OLD SHANGHAI. Check out the comic here. [AFP]
• The average price of commercial residential houses in Shanghai reached 19,603 yuan per square meter last week. Anybody got a house to sell? Now seems like the time. [People's Daily]
• The Book Fair was wildly successful this week - about 240,000 people visited, buying 28 million yuan worth of books. [Shanghai Daily]

Oooh nooooooo. You thought yesterday and today were hot? Looks like this crappy, terrible, face melting weather is going to stay with us for another five days. The Shanghai Meterological Bureau said that we could expect the same heat, thunder and rain through the weekend and into Monday of next week. Ugh. Well, there's not much we can do except take cold showers, remember to keep hydrated, stay indoors as much as possible and hope that the Shanghai Meterological Bureau is as on point this time as it was about Typhoon Morakot's imminent arrival. Source: Shanghai Daily

Despite weather reports that Typhoon Morakot would swing by our way (which triggered a rush of preparation for floods and damage) it... simply didn't. Yesterday was rainy and gross, but not any rainier and grosser than Shanghai weather normally tends to be. The same could not be said for other areas around Asia.

On Friday we all got a little nervous about Typhoon Morakot, with Xinhua warning everyone that it was unpredictable and crazy and could drench us all in dangerous winds and rain. Then the weekend hit and all Morakat seemed to do was spray us with what we'd already gotten in July anyway. What a relief. But wait! Now Shanghai Daily says that Morakot is actually going to hit the city TODAY, dumping rain ranging from 60 to 90mm per hour, according to the Shanghai Meteorological Bureau. It will be so bad, in fact, that seven teams have been sent to beef up deliveries of anti-flood material and patrol potential flood areas, while operators have been added to the 110 emergency telephone system. It's eye-hurtingly bright and sunny right now, but we'll be waiting by the window to see if this hell weather suddenly happens.

Man the sails, Typhoon Morakot is heading our way! It hit Taiwan this morning and should be in China by Saturday, according to Reuters. Across the strait, Morakot is a category 2 storm (from a scale of 1-5), meaning it's medium strength, but whether it will stay that way before hitting China still seems to be unclear.

• Ever wanted a ranking of the five sexiest pavilions for the World Expo? Well now you've got it. [Chinatravel.net]
• Speaking of pavilions, Germany's pavilion will guide visitors through its many exhibits with a storyline involving a Chinese woman and her German friend and end with a live performance by the story's characters [China Briefing]
• If you thought that the all the rain this week had something to do with the eclipse, you are wrong [China Daily]

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• Okay, so apparently Shanghai hasn't stopped on-board temperature checks, because one Shanghaiist managing editor totally had to go through one yesterday night.
• So yesterday was really hot, right? Today's apparently supposed to be slightly cooler, with a high of 32 degrees... and that still sounds sweltering to us. Looks like we'll be staying inside til night time. [Shanghai Daily]
• The first gorilla ever born in Shanghai (and the first in China since 1982) finally has a name, 17-months after his birth. And his name is Haibei. [Xinhua]

According to AccuWeather.com, it looks like we're headed for a Day After Tomorrow scenario.

• China opens bidding on moon probe technology [Reuters]"China will open competitive bidding so that domestic schools and institutions can help build crucial parts of the country's moon exploration craft, an official newspaper said on Wednesday."
• China launches satellite TV channel to train students, teachers and migrant workers [Xinhua] China Education Television (CETV) is to open a new satellite channel to offer educational services and vocational training for primary and middle school students, teachers, and migrant workers beginning on March 2.

Shanghai could be looking forward to the earliest Spring in 136 years, if current weather predictions prove to be true. Tomorrow is supposed to reach an astonishingly nice 23 degrees Celsius - that's almost t-shirt weather! That temperature will carry into Friday, though showers should lower it back down to the teens by Saturday. Still, we're all looking forward to breaking out the shorts and sandals as soon as possible. Source: Zaobao Zaobao!

We're shrouded in fog! And if you think you're having trouble getting around, think about how the 300 ships on the Huangpu River feel. Visibility is around 1000 meters all around, and reaches lows of 500 meters in some of the worse hit areas. This is the second time this month that fog has made things tough for the 2,000 incoming and outgoing ships Shanghai sees around the area. Last week, 700 got stuck at port. Source:Philstar

Michael Zhao of the New York-based Asia Society emailed us with this 3-min trailer video introducing their new project China Green and informs us:

As the source of most of the major river systems in Asia from China to Pakistan, including the Yellow, the Yangtze, the Mekong, the Salween, the Brahmaputra, the Ganges and the Indus, the Tibetan Plateau has become an epicenter of crisis. With the retreating of its glaciers - what glaciologist Lonnie Thompson has called the "fresh water bank account" of Asia - rivers and lakes have started running lower, pastures have become drier, deserts larger, weather patterns more unpredictable. Indeed, the whole ecosystem of the Tibetan Plateau and its hinterland are now slipping toward a catastrophic environmental disaster which will have continental implications far beyond the plateau itself.

Rain caused another three-hour delay today, and there is a lot of standing water on the course at Sheshan Golf Club, but second round action finally got started more than 24 hours late at 9:45 this morning. Most of the leaders teed off in the last hour. You can follow the leaderboard here and the official blog here. For those planning on heading out to the event, you may find this page helpful. Ticket info can be found here or you can call (+86) 21 962388.

The Shanghai tournament's website reports from a soggy Sheshan Golf Club: "[P]lay has been officially abandoned for the day without a ball being hit. ... The intention now is to play as much of two rounds on Saturday as possible, beginning at 6.45am." The tournament director for the European Tour stop said the leaders — including Henrik Stenson, Phil Mickelson, Sergio Garcia and Anthony Kim — will tee off at 8:30am. Shanghaiist's weather center reports a 70% chance of rain on Saturday. A more detailed look can be found here. Our advice: Bring an umbrella and a change of socks. If you have Friday tickets or passes, you can use them Saturday, and there is already talk of finishing the tournament on Monday (every golf journalist's dream).

France 24 asks if the Beijing Olympics will have any longlasting environmental legacy. The answer may have come earlier than expected: the smog has come back to envelop Beijing almost as soon as the restrictions on drivers and factories were lifted.

We were out and about in the rain all of yesterday and had no idea a "mega thunderstorm" was brewing out there in another part of town and people were getting killed in it. According to Xinhua, this was a "once-in-a-century thunderstorm":

A migrant worker was crushed to death and 14 were injured after a thunderstorm hit part of Shanghai on Saturday afternoon, municipal flood authorities said.

Continue reading "Shanghai thunderstorm kills one, injures 14 in Pudong and Nanhui districts"

Welcome to the newest episode of Chinese Soundbites, a podcast series brought to you by ChinesePod and Shanghaiist. Every week we'll be bringing you topics and words pulled straight from the headlines, in Mandarin Chinese.

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Got photos of this morning's storm or the flooding that followed it that you'd like to share? Email them to photos@shanghaiist.com and they will automatically show up on our Contribute Page. Flickr users, simply tag your photos "shanghaiist".

More photos on the Shanghaiist Contribute page. To see your photos on our Contribute page, use Flickr and tag your photos “shanghaiist”. Or you can email your photos to photos@shanghaiist.com and they will automatically appear on our site (and here).