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August 14, 2020

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The heat is on as city swelters on hottest day

Yesterday was the city’s hottest day in three years. A temperature of 38.6 degrees Celsius was recorded at the Xujiahui meteorological center in Xuhui District at 2pm.

The temperature was also the highest in the country, with two cities in Zhejiang Province following at 37.8 degrees.

The apparent temperature in the city, that perceived by humans and caused by the effects of air temperature, relative humidity and wind speed, was around 45 degrees at 2pm, the Public Weather Service Center said.

At 9:25am, the city’s weather bureau issued a yellow alert, the third highest in a four-tier system, for heat. It was the earliest that a heat alert had been issued this year.

After 90 minutes, the alert was updated to orange, the second highest, with temperatures around 37 degrees in most areas.

One online comment was: “We don’t want to win first place in the high-temperature contest in China,” while others said they felt like they had been cooked by the sun when walking on the road.

Sweltering conditions are expected to continue over the next 10 days at least.

Today’s high will be 38 degrees and then temperatures will decline slightly to 36 degrees on Sunday and remain there for several days.

The electricity load in Shanghai hit a record high yesterday, reaching 32.72 million kilowatts, an increase of 1.49 million kilowatts from last year’s highest figure.

The previous record, of 32.68 million kilowatts, was in 2017.

Currently, the power supply citywide is sufficient, with an overall power supply capacity of about 35.5 million kilowatts, of which almost 60 percent is locally generated.

According to State Grid Shanghai, the general power usage this year has been gradually gaining with the reopening of the economy after the novel coronavirus epidemic. Demand for air-conditioning in the summer heat and work resumption were the main factors behind the high demand for power.

The company said it had improved its supply management systems to ensure stable supply of electricity, focusing on maintenance and inspection of equipment, data analysis of faults and intelligent controls.

The power stability rate of the city so far this year reached 99.9917 percent, with the rate for central urban areas reaching 99.9997 percent. The average power failure time was 7.9 percent less than last year.

Emergency plans have also been carried out to safeguard the city from floods and typhoons amid the typical season. During Hagupit, the first typhoon passing Shanghai this year, all affected power grids had been repaired in time.

There are a total of 173 power repair stations throughout the city, with an emergency team of more than 3,500 workers to respond to incidents.




 

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