Cooler days coming

By Lu Feiran and Chen Yanting  |   2008-8-8  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

SHANGHAI is expected to cool off from today through the weekend with a few scattered showers mixed in, as the city begins to play host to Olympic soccer matches.

The daily highs are forecast to range between 33 and 34 degrees Celsius, with lows of 26 to 27 degrees, the Shanghai Meteorological Bureau said yesterday.

The cooler weather is being caused by a tropical cyclone system on the sea around Shanghai, forecasters said.

Autumn began yesterday, according to the solar calender, but "meteorological" fall still may be weeks or more away.

The season isn't official until the average daily temperature drops below 22 degrees for five straight days. That usually happens during the second half of September, but for the past two years autumn hasn't come until mid-October.

The weather bureau yesterday sent a mobile weather radar and wind profiler to Nanhui District to monitor weather conditions during the Olympic soccer matches in Shanghai, which began yesterday. The radar can monitor the weather over 300 square kilometers, and the other instrument can create a three-dimensional profile of winds below 1,000 meters.

The bureau intends to send hourly weather forecasts to the Shanghai Soccer Organizing Committee.