🏮 Shanghai Weather

Plum rains and humid subtropical seasons

Shanghai, on China's central coast at the mouth of the Yangtze, has a humid subtropical climate with four clear seasons, abundant moisture, and a distinctive early-summer rainy spell. The nearby sea keeps it humid year-round and exposes the city to the typhoons that track up the coast in late summer.

The "plum rains" and hot summers

In June, the "Meiyu," or plum rains, arrive — a weeks-long stretch of overcast skies, high humidity, and persistent rain named for the ripening plums of the season. It gives way to a hot, sticky midsummer, with July and August highs around 90°F (32°C) and muggy nights, plus the risk of typhoons bringing wind and flooding from August into September.

Cool, damp winters

Winters are cool and damp rather than truly cold, with January highs around 48°F (9°C). The humidity makes the chill feel sharper than the thermometer suggests, and grey, drizzly spells are common. Snow and hard frost are infrequent and usually brief in the city.

Shanghai is wet, averaging about 47 inches (1,190 mm) of rain a year, with peaks during the plum rains and typhoon season. Spring and autumn are the most comfortable seasons — mild, increasingly clear, and pleasant for exploring the city.

Plum rains and typhoon season

Shanghai's humid subtropical climate brings four distinct seasons with a maritime edge. Early summer delivers the 'plum rains' (meiyu), a stretch of persistent damp, drizzly weather in June as a stalled front sits over the region, followed by hot, sticky midsummer.

Late summer and autumn are typhoon season, when storms sweeping up the China coast can bring damaging wind and torrential rain to the low-lying delta city. Winters are cool, damp, and grey rather than deeply cold, though the lack of central heating in older buildings can make the raw chill feel sharper than the numbers suggest.