Get ready to get wet

The plum rain season has arrived with more rainy days ahead, the Shanghai Meteorological Bureau announced on Monday.

Generally, the warm summer monsoon meets the cold air from northern areas at the Yangtze and Huaihe river basins between mid-June and early July and then triggers what we called plum rain.

This summer's first round of plum rain will fall from Monday night to Tuesday daytime. During this period, Shanghai will receive heavy to torrential rain, possibly with lightning.

Most of the city will see rainfall of 30 to 50 millimeters, while some areas may see up to 80 millimeters.

The rain will return between Thursday this week and Tuesday next week.

In Shanghai, plum rain season is not always in June and July. Weather records show that the city's earliest plum rain season, in 1936, started on May 22. The latest one came on July 9, 1982.

The average number of days in the period is 23, the longest being 58 days in 1954, while the shortest lasted only two days, in 1897 and 1965.

The average precipitation in the period is 243.1 millimeters, almost one fifth of the yearly total.