Shanghai will build a super-metropolitan comprehensive weather monitoring system by 2010 to enhance its forecasting capability for disastrous weather, a senior weather official said at a June 14 weather work meeting.

The official, in charge of the Shanghai Meteorological Bureau, revealed that disastrous weather systems have been increasing in Shanghai and imposing major challenges for the city's security. 

The number of hot days with temperatures above 30 degrees Celsius have increased from the average of nine annually in the past 30 years, to 17 during the past ten years, and nearly one quarter of the days in the last 11 years have been smoggy or foggy.  As well, the probability and intensity of heavy rain and hail have grown, resulting from the worsening urban heat island effect that is expanding in the downtown area.

A densely populated industrialized city like Shanghai is more likely to suffer huge damages and financial losses from these disastrous hits, the official pointed out. Realizing this, Shanghai's weathermen have been engaged in improving the city's weather forecasting service.

The city's rate of correct 24-hour weather forecasts, he said, has remained high at around 90 percent, while the error distance of its 24-hour typhoon report is 136 kilometers, 40 kilometers shorter than ten years ago.

(Shanghai Daily June 15, 2005)