![]() ![]() These floods have resulted in an estimated USD $160.68million of direct economic losses. ![]() More than 156 houses have been destroyed, 219 houses damaged and 63,000 people relocated, alongside damage to 70,300 hectares of crops in the province. For example, nearly 1.1 million people have been affected in Jiangxi province, which sits downstream on the Yangtze. These floods further up the Yangtze have also caused severe floods downstream. Floods in Sichuan, which sits upstream of the Yangtze River, have impacted eight cities in the province, with damage to 230,000 hectares of crops and economic loss estimated at USD $440 million. The three major provinces affected were the Heilongjiang, Sichuan, and Jiangxi provinces. The map depicts total rainfall accumulation from 22 June to 3 July 2021 the highest rainfall is represented by red. Areas affected – Late June 2021įigure 2: Areas severely affected in the late June 2021 floods. When prevailing winds meet a higher terrain, the air mass is forced to rise from low elevation to high elevation, which causes it to cool and result in clouds and precipitation. The prolonged rainfall experienced in July was a result of high pressure in the western Pacific Ocean, combined with moisture carried by strong winds from Typhoon In-Fa that came from the east of China (SCMP, 2021a).įurthermore, as Zhengzhou is located in the foothills of Taihang mountains, orographic uplift likely further intensified the rainfall in July (Yale Climate Connections, 2021). This combination of high humidity, heat and rain provides the perfect conditions for plum harvest, leading to the colloquial name of ‘plum rain.’ The insert in Figure 1 illustrates the mean position of the Mei Yu monsoon rain bands for the months of May, June and July (Chevuturi, 2021). As this air meets the cooler continental air from China, the interaction between the two air masses causes the weather front to move back and forth across mainland China. The Plum Rainĭuring the summer months, between June and August, China and Japan experience the Mei Yu (Plum Rain) season.Īlso known as the East Asian rainy season, it is a result of warm moist air coming from the East of China, in the Pacific Ocean. The mean position of the monsoon front rainband for May (light purple), June (purple) and July (dark purple) are illustrated in the insert, and are based on the ERA5 climate reanalysis dataset from 1979-2014 (Chevuturi, 2021). (Insert) China experiences the annual “Mei Yu” season during the summer months. Economic losses for Henan alone are likely to reach at least USD $13.79 billion (SCMP, 2021b).įigure 1: An overview of provinces affected by floods from different events in 2021: late June (blue-purple), July (orange), and Typhoon In-Fa (purple) in late July. Maximum sustained winds of 74 km/h (tropical storm) were recorded (ReliefWeb, 2021).Īs of 2 August 2021, 302 deaths were officially reported. Next, Typhoon In-Fa made landfall on the Zhoushan Archipelago in Zhejiang Province, on the central coast of eastern China, on 25 July at 12:30pm (local time) with the centre of the storm being 40km south of Shanghai. The severe floods in July were attributed to the prolonged rainfall deposited in a short period of time across widespread areas (please refer to section on Rainfall Analysis for more information). The largest rainfall event observed in Zhengzhou city, located in Henan province, has been classified as a 1-in-1,000-year flood (Reuters, 2021a), making it one of the worst events to affect China this year. This was followed by unprecedented rainfall in July as flooding occurred in Henan province (Earth Observatory, 2021). ![]() Spanning the last two months, the floods started in late June in the provinces of Sichuan (CNA, 2021), Jiangxi (Floodlist, 2021a) and Heilongjiang (Floodlist, 2021b) following successive occurrences of heavy rainfall. A series of recent flood events have caused widespread devastation across multiple provinces in China. ![]()
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