REUTERS
June 22, 2023 at 17:05 JST
A shirtless man rests on a bench amid a yellow alert for a heatwave, in Beijing, China June 21, 2023. (REUTERS)
BEIJING--The temperature in Beijing soared above 40 degrees Celsius on Thursday for the first time since 2014 and broke the record for the hottest day in June, with heatwaves that had seared northern China a week earlier expected to persist through the weekend.
A weather station in the southern suburbs of Beijing recorded 40.7C (105.3 Fahrenheit) at 2:30 p.m. (0630 GMT), according to the municipal weather bureau, marking the first breach of the 40C threshold since May 29, 2014.
Thursday was also Beijing’s hottest day in the month of June since modern meteorological records began. The previous all-time high was logged on June 10, 1961, when the mercury rose to 40.6C.
Early on Thursday the city of nearly 22 million people raised an orange alert, the second-highest weather warning, saying that temperatures could rise as high as 39C in most parts of the city from Thursday to Saturday.
Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei and Shandong in northern and eastern China were hammered by heatwaves last week, prompting local authorities to step up efforts to safeguard crops, ensure the safety of tourists, and suspend outdoor work during the hottest part of the day.
Last week, the national weather bureau issued an alert for heat stroke, almost a fortnight earlier than in previous years, as new record temperatures for the month of June assailed cities across northern China.
In the port city of Tianjin, increased demand for air-conditioning pushed its power grid load to 14.54 million kilowatts on June 15, up 23% from a year earlier, and spurred its local utility department to dispatch workers to patrol underground tunnels every day to ensure electrical cables are in working order.
The latest round of heatwaves, coinciding with the Dragon Boat Festival long weekend in China, will also hit the northern Chinese region of Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang in the far west, according to the China Meteorological Administration.
China has a four-tier, color-coded weather warning system, with red the most severe, followed by orange, yellow and blue.
An orange alert is issued when the maximum temperature exceeds 40C in a single day, or the maximum temperature remains above 37C for two consecutive days.
China heatwaves drive up power demand to record levels, southern floods swamp cities
June 23, 2022
Dozens of Chinese cities on heatwave alert as roofs melt, roads buckle
July 12, 2022
Heatwave fee for Asia’s gig workers does little to cool climate stress
July 21, 2022
China sees record rains, heat as weather turns volatile
July 5, 2022
Early pressure patterns causing record-setting heat in Japan
June 30, 2022
Here is a collection of first-hand accounts by “hibakusha” atomic bomb survivors.
A peek through the music industry’s curtain at the producers who harnessed social media to help their idols go global.
Cooking experts, chefs and others involved in the field of food introduce their special recipes intertwined with their paths in life.
A series based on diplomatic documents declassified by Japan’s Foreign Ministry
A series about Japanese-Americans and their memories of World War II
