The Plum Rain Season

It's been very wet lately - quite a lot rain which made me feel the "plum rain season" has started already. But actually it is still early for the "plum rain season" which is  normally in June and July in Shanghai and the Yangtze Delta area.

The plum rain is not  rain in plum colour :)  The name come from the old saying:"When the rain falls on the ripe plums, there follows 40 rainy days". The ancient Chinese timed the arrival of the season by the growth of the plum. (Just the other day in a food department store, the shop assistant offerred some green plums to me - obviously the plums are not ripe yet.)

Due to the rains, the humidity runs between 80 and 90 per cent. At the same time, the air temperature is very high, ranging from 20 to 34 degrees centigrade. The air flows very slowly during this period, which makes the weather stuffy.

The plum rain season normally lasts about 20 days, but it also depends on the year - I remember in 1999 when I first came to Shanghai the rain season lasted  more than 2 months. That wasn't very nice experience at all.

So if you plan to have a holiday in Shanghai, you'd better avoid the plum rain season as much as you can.