China News Service, Shanghai, February 21 (Reporter Li Shuzheng) In the early morning of the 21st, Shanghai experienced lightning and thunder, heavy rain, and even short-term hail in some areas. At 05:15 on the 21st, the Shanghai Central Meteorological Observatory issued a yellow warning signal for hail.
"I was woken up by thunder at around 5 o'clock. Are you afraid that I would be late for work?" "There was crackling outside the glass window, heavy rain and hail." Early on the morning of the 21st, Shanghainese people who had been disturbed from their sweet dreams complained on social platforms. "Shanghai heavy rain" once became a hot search on the Internet.
In addition to thunder, lightning and hail, Shanghai also experienced short-term heavy rainfall and local heavy rain. "The thunder is loud and the sky is very dark. You need to turn on the lights indoors at noon." As of press time, there are still thunder, lightning and bursts of heavy rain in many places in Shanghai from time to time.
"The Spring Festival holiday has just passed and the Waking of Insects has not yet arrived. Why is the thunder so strong? (Shanghai dialect: Qi Jin)" a Shanghainese asked on the social platform.
During the Spring Festival holiday of the Jiachen year of the lunar calendar, not only was the good weather in Shanghai "online", but the wind stopped, the rain stopped, and the snow stopped in many places in China. The holidays are coming to an end and the cold wave is approaching. On the 20th, the cold wave moved southward to Sichuan and Chongqing, but then encountered "tenacious resistance" from extremely warm and humid airflow in northeastern Guizhou, southern Hunan, central Jiangxi and the coastal areas of northeastern Fujian. Under the extreme "collision of cold and warm", heavy rain, snow, thunderstorms, hail, and freezing rain occurred in central and eastern China.
The Shanghai Meteorological Department stated that the warm and humid air flow strengthened again on the night of the 20th, the cold and warm air merged fiercely, and the unstable energy of the atmosphere increased. Affected by severe thunderstorm clouds, in the early morning of the 21st, severe thunder and lightning and short-term heavy precipitation occurred in Shanghai from north to south, and hail occurred in some areas of the central city and Chongming.
The fierce exchange of warm and cold air caused Shanghai to encounter a "raid" of hail. Looking back at the hail records in Shanghai since 1990, we can see that the hail in Shanghai on the 21st came suddenly. Shanghai once experienced hail weather on January 29, 2016, and most of the rest occurred in seasons when cold and warm air meet intensely or in midsummer when convection is strong.
According to the Shanghai Meteorological Department, affected by the intersection of cold and warm air, Shanghai will still have rainy weather and low temperatures in the middle and late stages of this week. From the 22nd to the 25th, there was mainly light rain, and the temperature continued to drop slightly, generally between 3℃ and 7℃. (over)