City soaked by torrential plum season rain
A child runs on the promenade at the Bund on Monday.
Shanghai received what Chinese called Baolimei, or “violent plum rain,” on Monday with torrential rain hitting the city.
The “violent plum rain” refers to heavy rain in the plum rain season, which generally sees continuous but lighter rainfalls.
At 8:30am on Monday, the Shanghai Meteorological Bureau issued a blue alarm for six hours of downpours with a yellow lightning alarm issued at 12:10pm on Sunday which warned of thundershowers in 24 hours, still in place.
The blue alert, lowest of a four-color system, was upgraded to yellow two hours later, indicating precipitation reaching up 50 millimeters an hour or 80 millimeters in six hours and that such conditions could last for a while.
Monday saw the strongest rainfall since the city entered its flood season, the weather bureau said.
Shanghai’s flood prevention office raised its emergency response to the third level in the morning, with rainfall in six hours expected to exceed 50 millimeters.
According to the office, of all 700 monitoring sites across the city, the F1 track and Jiading New Town recorded the highest levels of 117.2 millimetres and 112.5 millimeters by noon, while 284 sites reached 50 millimeters and 196 reaching 25 millimeters. Rainfall was mainly concentrated in Hongkou, Putuo, Jiading, Baoshan and Chongming districts.
Heavy rainfall hits Shanghai on Monday morning.
The office announced flood prevention guidance on Sunday night, including traffic control in heavy rain areas, the cutoff of power in low-lying areas, the suspension of outdoor operations, and the removal of residents in hazardous buildings.
On receiving the guide, a number of enterprises put emergency plans in place. Realty group Huicheng in Xuhui District send a 158-strong emergency team, 24 trucks, two trailer pumps and 24 gasoline pumps to patrol key road sections and ensure smooth drainage.
Sate Grid Shanghai Co also made preparations in advance, including inspecting some 2,400 pumping stations across the city, with people on standby for repairs.
Commuters suffered major traffic congestion during rush hours at elevated roads and expressways, including the heavily crammed Yan’an Elevated Road and East Yan’an Road Tunnel, North-south Elevated Road, the Inner Ring and Middle Ring. The S2 Hulu Expressway saw an almost 5-kilometer queue of vehicles around 8:30am.
Waterlogging caused the shutdown of several traffic lanes such as Waiqingsong Highway Interchange, the G2 Lintao Road underpass in Jiading District and the Hujia Expressway Hongliu Road Interchange in Putuo District.
The city’s bus group made emergency plans for the rain, including inspecting screen wipers and ensuring safety on electric buses.
“We’ve received the guidelines reminding us to drive safely and slowly especially on waterlogged roads. The electric bus I drive has a water level limit of 300 millimeters,” said Bus Line 136 driver Xu Jianping.
Umbrellas and disposable raincoats were available for passengers on some routes.
“These are for some drenched passengers who might slip on the bus and cause hidden safety risks. We trust they will return the umbrellas later,” said Zhao Jun of the Longhua bus fleet.
Shanghai traffic police said they had deployed over 2,500 police officers to the streets on Monday morning in anticipation of the rain.
Morning rush hour was extended due to congestion in parts of the city, but on the whole the traffic situation was stable, police said.
By 12:30pm, five underpasses in the city in Qingpu, Jiading and Putuo districts and the Pudong New Area were closed to traffic due to water levels over 25 centimeters, according to the city's road transportation development center.
By late afternoon, all the affected underpasses, apart from the underpass on Waiqingsong Highway under Huning Railway in Jiading District, had been reopened.
Over 200 flights were canceled at the Pudong and Hongqiao airports as of 6pm on Monday due to the weather.
The air traffic controller issued a third-level yellow alert for flight delays at both airports on Monday morning and expected their takeoff and landing capacity to be reduced by 20 percent up to 7pm.
The alert was later upgraded to the second level, meaning takeoff and landing capacity over Shanghai could be reduced by half through 11pm.
A total of 149 flights were canceled at the Hongqiao International Airport due to the rainstorm. Twenty-seven flights had to be diverted to nearby airports, while over 20 flights were delayed for over two hours.
Ninety flights were canceled at the Pudong International Airport, and 17 flights were delayed for over two hours.
The yellow rainstorm alert was lifted at 3:30pm after the cluster of rain clouds moved eastward to the sea and the rain weakened. But the yellow lightning alert is still in place with another round of thundershowers expected between Monday night and Tuesday.
Part of the city will receive heavy to torrential rains again during this period. Morning fog is also expected on Tuesday and peak traffic on Tuesday morning will be affected by the wet weather.
The maximum temperature will drop to 25 degrees Celsius on Tuesday with a low of 22 degrees.
With a subtropical high pressure getting stronger and stretching west, the plum rain belt will move northward on Wednesday and the city will be under a "warm zone" of the rain belt's southern edge. Wednesday will be mostly cloudy with a few brief showers or thundershowers.
However, the rain belt will return to the middle and lower reaches of Yangtze River on Thursday and Friday and bring the rain back again.
The temperature will rise to 29 degrees on Wednesday and fall to 27 and 25 degrees on Thursday and Friday with lows ranging from 22 to 23 degrees.
Dry weather will return at the weekend but there will be change in temperature though the summer warmth is expected to embrace the city next week.
