Temperatures across China reached or exceeded their records for the month of May, the country’s National Climate Centre has said.
Weather stations at 446 sites registered temperatures that were the same as, or greater than, the highest ever recorded for the month of May, deputy director of the National Climate Centre Gao Rong said at a press briefing on Friday.
On Monday, the Shanghai Meteorology Bureau reported that the city had recorded a temperature of 36.1 degrees Celsius. The previous record for May was 35.7C, which occurred in 2018.
Over the next three days, most of southern China is expected to be hit by temperatures of more than 35C, with temperatures in some areas exceeding 40C, according to national forecasters on Friday.
Power grids are preparing to be put under strain as demand for airconditioning soars in mega-cities such as Shanghai.
Demand for electricity in southern manufacturing hubs, including Guangdong, has surged in recent days, with China Southern Power Grid, one of the country’s two grid operators, seeing peak power load exceeding 200m kilowatts – weeks earlier than normal and close to historical highs.
The sweltering heat comes amid a year of rising temperatures and erratic weather in China.
In February, the China Meteorological Administration warned that “extreme weather and climate events are still showing a high incidence and intensity [for the year]”.
In March, temperatures in Wuhan and Zhengzhou, cities in central China, were more than 10 degrees higher than normal for that time of year.
Unusually for China, 2023 has seen the arid north of the country hotter than the south, a pattern that is thought to be causing a range of ecological problems.
Since last summer, the Yangtze river basin has experienced the worst drought since 1961, hurting local grain harvests. Chinese government statistics show that since July last year, rainfall in the Yangtze river basin has declined by nearly 50%.
The water level in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze river, Poyang and Dongting Lakes, which are the largest and the second-largest freshwater lakes in China, are the lowest in history for the same period.
Yunnan province in south-west China has also been experiencing a drought since the beginning of this year, with average down 60% compared with the same period in 2022, and the average temperature up 0.8 degrees., according to government agencies.
Nearly a million people in the province are suffering from drought, with nearly 200,000 needing some kind of assistance from the government.
Reuters contributed to this report