Shanghai is hot, and will get hotter when 'plum rain' season ends

Shanghai's third hottest-ever "plum rain" season ended on Friday, and the city is about to go into even hotter weather and the typhoon season.

The city's plum rain season started on June 12 and only lasted 19 days – two days shorter than normal, according to the Shanghai Meteorological Bureau.

It is also drier and hotter than average, with 61.8 millimeters of rain, 70 percent less than normal years, and five sizzling days of highs over 35 degrees Celsius.

The plum rain season is caused by warm air from Southeast Asia, which results in a rain belt moving around the Yangtze Rive Delta region in June and July. As these months are the ripening period of plums, it is called "plum rain" season.

The number of high-temperature days in this year's plum rain is the third-highest on record, as same as 1893. The second-highest was six days in 1934 and 2005, and the highest was eight days in 1925.

The end of the plum rain season always indicates the hottest part of the year, sanfu, is ahead.

More slight rain is expected next week and this weekend, while the mercury will range between 25 and 33 degrees.

It is also time for the city to prepare for typhoon, as summer is the active season of the Western Pacific tropical system, said the bureau.