BEIJING: The summer of 2022 is on track to become the hottest since China began compiling complete meteorological records in 1961 as a scorching heat wave is forecast to smother most parts of the country in the coming two weeks, triggering fresh concerns over drought, heat damage to crops and new peaks in energy consumption, China’s weather authority said.
The National Meteorological Center said extreme high temperatures will continue in many parts of the country, especially in the Turpan area of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, the Sichuan basin and regions in the middle and the lower reaches of the Yangtze River.
It said that in some areas, high temperature could reach 40 C, possibly breaking records. Since Friday, the center has issued a red alert for extreme heat for three straight days. Chen Tao, chief forecaster at the National Meteorological Observatory, said a national temperature red alert is issued when the highest temperature in areas across four or more provincial-level regions in the past 48 hours hits 40 C and above and is forecast to persist in those regions. “Since late July, there have been large-scale and high-intensity high temperatures in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River due to an abnormally strong subtropical high pressure system in the western Pacific,” Chen Tao said.
–The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
