Recent severe convective weather patterns have engulfed several areas in China, triggering various extreme disasters. Particularly on the 19th and 20th, the heavy rains not only had a wide coverage but were also described by local official media as “the heavens opening up,” with claims that “almost half of China is being drenched.”
According to the severe convective weather forecast released by the China Meteorological Administration on June 19th, from 8:00 on the 19th to 05:00 on the 20th, four autonomous regions (Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Ningxia, Guangxi), two municipalities directly under the central government (Beijing, Tianjin), and eighteen provinces (Heilongjiang, Liaoning, Xinjiang, Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong, Henan, Anhui, Jiangsu, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Fujian, Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, Guangxi, Guangdong), and other regions experienced severe convective weather with short-term heavy precipitation, with hourly rainfall of 30-50 millimeters and locally exceeding 90 millimeters.
According to China’s rainstorm warning signal, a red warning is issued when the three-hour rainfall exceeds 100 millimeters. Therefore, in the severe convective weather, an hourly rainfall of 30 millimeters is approaching the red warning threshold.
On June 20th, the official media in Anhui, through the verified new media program “News Warrior” on TikTok, set the tone at the beginning, stating: “This is not just rain, it’s like the heavens have opened up. Almost half of China is pouring water.”
As a local media outlet in Anhui, the program’s female anchor emphasized the real situation of Anhui in this wave of disasters – “Anhui has entered the core area of this round of rainfall.”
She mentioned that Anhui skyrocketed to the top of the national rainfall rankings overnight. From 5:00 to 10:00 on June 19th, data from 2418 national-level meteorological observation stations across the country showed that Anhui’s Dingyuan received 137.9 millimeters of rainfall, and Mingguang in Anhui received 102.1 millimeters, ranking the top two in the national rainfall rankings.
On the previous day, 142 stations in Anqing, Hefei, Lu’an experienced heavy rain, with 4 stations encountering severe rain. The largest was Tongpu in Tongcheng, which received 260.5 millimeters of rain in 6 hours.
Exaggeratingly, Langxi County in Xuancheng City received 98.3 millimeters of rainfall in one hour, with the anchor stressing, “This is not rain, it’s as if the heavens have opened up.”
The female anchor named ten cities in Anhui as the key areas of concern, including Hefei, Lu’an, Chuzhou, Anqing, Chizhou, Tongling, Wuhu, Ma’anshan, Xuancheng, Huangshan.
She believed that the “real test is still ahead.”
The Anhui Provincial Meteorological Observatory forecasted continuous rainfall from the 19th to the 24th. She said, “It’s not just one round of rainfall, but one round of heavy rain after another, pressing down like a wheel of war.”
She also emphasized that such extreme rainfall may no longer be just isolated incidents, but could become more frequent occurrences around us.
Taking the county-level city of Hailun in Heilongjiang as an example, on June 19th, the official directly upgraded the yellow rainstorm warning to a red warning. Hailun did not only experience heavy rain on the 19th. On the 18th, the Heilongjiang Provincial Meteorological Observatory had issued a severe convective forecast, listing Hailun in the thunderstorm, strong wind, and hail risk area. Hailun this time is a typical case of the ongoing severe convective weather in Heilongjiang.
According to the latest severe convective weather forecast released by the China Meteorological Administration, from 14:00 on June 20th to 08:00 on June 21st, parts of 15 provincial-level regions such as Eastern Inner Mongolia, Western Heilongjiang, Western Jilin, Northern Liaoning, Southern Anhui, Southeast Hubei, Hunan, Central-Northern Jiangxi, Central-Northern Zhejiang, will experience short-term heavy precipitation, with hourly rainfall of 30-50 millimeters and locally exceeding 90 millimeters.
Furthermore, localized thunderstorm winds or hail are expected in parts of Eastern Inner Mongolia, Southwest Heilongjiang, Western Jilin, Western Liaoning, Southern Shanxi, Northern Henan, Central-Northern Jiangxi, Northern Guangxi, and the northeast part of Hainan Island.
Public data indicates that severe convective weather refers to a type of sudden, destructive weather phenomenon caused by the intense collision of warm and cold air in the atmosphere, resulting in vigorous upward air movement. Simply put, it’s the rapid release of energy in the sky, forming thunderstorm clouds (cumulonimbus clouds), triggering various extreme weather conditions.