Unprecedented heat of 36.1°C then 36.7°C. Shanghai recorded the hottest May day in 100 years on Monday, the east China city’s meteorological department said. “At 1:09 p.m. the temperature at Xujiahui Station reached 36.1°C, breaking a 100-year-old record for the highest temperature for a month of May,” said the meteorological service’s official account on the social network. Chinese Weibo.
A few hours later, the meteorological station in central Shanghai reached 36.7°C, according to the same source. It has thus beaten by one degree the previous record which had been recorded four times, in 1876, 1903, 1915 and 2018.
“It’s really hot enough to explode”
Residents of China’s largest city suffered from the heat in the early afternoon, with some apps showing a “felt” temperature of over 40°C. “I went out at noon to pick up a delivery and had a headache on the way home,” a post from Shanghai read on Weibo. “I almost had a heat stroke, it’s really hot enough to explode,” lamented another.
Climate change has made extreme heat waves at least 30 times more likely in this country, according to a study by 22 international climatologists from the “World Weather Attribution” initiative published in mid-May.