On Saturday, Beijing reached 40 degrees Celsius (104F) for the third time in a row as the Chinese capital sweltered in excessive heat, while unusually high temperatures for June broiled a region the size of California in northern China.
At 1:51 p.m. (0551 GMT), the temperature measured by Beijing’s benchmark weather station in the city’s southern outskirts temporarily surpassed 40 degrees Celsius.
Until Saturday, the city of over 22 million people has never had three consecutive days above 40 degrees Celsius since the southern observatory was established in 1951.
Aside from Beijing, Hebei, Henan, Shandong, Inner Mongolia, and Tianjin upped or maintained their hot weather alert to ‘red’, the highest level in China’s four-tier warning system.
A red signal indicates that the temperature may exceed 40 degrees Celsius within the next 24 hours.
According to the local media, the temperature had reached 37 degrees Celsius in an area of 450,000 square km (174,000 square miles) as of 1:13 pm.
According to Chinese meteorologists, the second set of heatwaves in around ten days was triggered by warm air masses associated with high-pressure ridges in the atmosphere.
“The effect was exacerbated by sparse cloud cover and lengthy daylight hours around the summer solstice”, it added.
According to the official data, between 1990 and 2020, the average number of days with temperatures of 35 degrees Celsius or higher in Beijing was 10.6.
June is not even over and that statistic has already been eclipsed, as temperatures in Beijing surpassed 35 degrees Celsius for the 11th time this year on Saturday.
Beijing reached 40.3 degrees Celsius on Friday, following reaching 41.1 degrees Celsius on Thursday, the Chinese capital’s second-hottest day in modern times.
The all-time high temperature in Beijing was 41.9 degrees Celsius on July 24, 1999.
Northern China’s heat waves are predicted to subside by Monday before resuming strength later in the week.
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