In the span of weeks, China has been pummeled by typhoons, scorched by record heat, and flooded by relentless rains — a summer of extremes that has battered its cities, devastated farmlands, and tested its resilience.

The latest blow came from Typhoon Pulasan, which drenched Shanghai and neighboring Zhejiang province before fading on Sept. 21. It followed close on the heels of Typhoon Bebinca, the fiercest storm to strike Shanghai in over 70 years, with wind speeds reaching up to 162 kilometers per hour.

But even Bebinca paled in comparison to Typhoon Yagi, which made landfall in the southern island province of Hainan on Sept. 6 with devastating force. Packing winds of up to 245 kilometers per hour, Yagi was the strongest storm to hit China this year, causing an estimated 80 billion yuan ($11.3 billion) in direct economic losses. The storm wreaked havoc on over 1.4 million mu (about 232,000 acres) of farmland, leaving 246,500 tons of crops unharvested.

For much of China, typhoons weren’t the only extreme weather wreaking havoc this year. Flooding and heat waves have been just as severe, with the country’s northern regions hit hardest by record rainfall.

At 14 national weather stations in northern China this past August, daily precipitation surpassed all previous records. Among them, Huludao, in northeastern Liaoning province, received a year’s worth of rain in just three days from Aug. 18-20 — the heaviest downpour since records began in 1951. More than 188,000 people were affected, and the economic damage reached 10.3 billion yuan.

Meanwhile, areas along the Yangtze River were plagued by extreme heat.

August 2024 saw the country’s average temperature soar to 22.6 degrees Celsius — 1.5 degrees higher than usual — making it the hottest August since records began in 1961. Chongqing, located in the upper reaches of the Yangtze, and the downstream cities of Hangzhou and Shanghai, all shattered records for high-temperature days. By Sept. 18, Chongqing had experienced 70 days with temperatures exceeding 35 degrees Celsius, including over 30 days above 40 degrees Celsius.

Editor: Apurva.

(Header image: The aftermath of Typhoon Yagi, Haikou, Hainan province, Sept. 11, 2024. VCG)