Weather to forget during holiday celebrations

The first two days of the National Day holiday are expected to bring heavy rain under the effect of Severe Tropical Storm Mitag, the Shanghai Meteorological Bureau announced on Sunday.

It will sweep the city on Tuesday and weaken from Wednesday.

According to the weather bureau, at 8am on Sunday, the center of Mitag was about 1,450 kilometers southeast to Shanghai, moving northwest at a speed of 25 kilometers per hour, packing maximum winds of 100 kph. It will grow stronger to a typhoon or severe typhoon. 

The bureau expects Mitag to pass northeastern Taiwan Monday night and turn to northward. On late Tuesday afternoon, it will pass close to central or northern Zhejiang Province.

After Mitag leaves on Thursday and Friday, the city will be dominated by high pressure and clouds.

Next weekend, a cold front will bring temperatures down by 4 to 5 degrees Celsius.

The bureau said the arrival of meteorological autumn this year is likely to be after the weekend, later than usual.

In the past four months, Shanghai had more precipitation, a longer and wetter plum rain season, stronger typhoons and more heavy rainstorms. Precipitation between June and September reached 921.2 millimeters, around 50 percent more than the normal 614 millimeters during this period.

Eight stormy days with rains of 50 millimeters or more were recorded, second only to 1999's 10 days in city's weather history.

The plum rain season lasted 10 more days than the average 23 days with precipitation 70 percent more than the norm.

There were three typhoons, Lekima, Lingling and Tapah, Lekima being the second strongest typhoon to affect the city since 1949.  

It is normal for the city to experience some effects of typhoons in October but rare for a typhoon to land during the National Day holiday.