The Middle Kingdom is experiencing a heat wave. A temperature record was broken in mid-July in China, in the Xinjiang region, in the west of the country. 52.2°C were recorded on Sunday, according to the national meteorology. Xinjiang, a vast semi-desert territory bordering several Central Asian countries, is usually the hottest region in China in summer.
“Sunday at 7 p.m. [13 heures, heure française], the maximum temperature recorded by the meteorological station of the village of Sanbao, (…) which depends on the city of Turpan, was 52.2 ° C”, indicated this Monday the Chinese meteorological services. The previous record for this station dates back to July 2017 when the mercury reached 50.6 ° C, they said.
80°C floor
“I have never seen such a temperature recorded by a regional weather station,” commented on his Weibo account. [l’équivalent chinois de Twitter] a national weather analyst, Xin Xin. The oasis town of Turpan (also written Turfan) is located at the gates of the Taklamakan desert and more than 2,200 km from Beijing. The ground temperature there reached locally 80 ° C on Sunday, according to the Chinese weather services.
Midsummer heat waves are not unusual in China. But the Asian giant has been facing extreme weather conditions in recent months, exacerbated by climate change, according to scientists. In January, a cold record was broken in China at Mohe, on the border with Russia (-53°C). Last year, China experienced its hottest August since records began in 1961, after weeks of an unprecedented heat wave.