One city in China’s southernmost province of Hainan – Changjiang – recorded a temperature of 41.5 degrees Celsius on May 6, the highest in the province since weather records began.

Cities in Yunnan and Guangxi also recorded temperatures over 40 degrees on the same day.

This summer’s temperatures were expected to be near or above the average of previous years in most parts of China, Gao Hui, chief forecaster of the National Climate Centre, was quoted as saying on the CMA website on Monday.

In terms of the duration, intensity and extent of the heatwaves, this summer’s heat would be weaker than last year’s, he said.

“But the duration and extent of high temperatures this year will be higher than the average of previous years,” he said, adding that in parts of central and southern China temperatures would be 1 or 2 degrees higher than in previous years.

Last summer, China had the most severe heatwave in six decades. It stretched for more than 70 days and affected over 900 million people in at least 17 provinces.

Extreme heat and drought have also affected the nation’s industrial production and power supplies. Provinces in southern China announced power rationing measures and forced factories to close for several days to conserve supplies.

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicted there was a more than 60 per cent chance that globally, 2023 would rank among the top two hottest years on record. There was a 93 per cent chance it would rank among the top five, and a 50 per cent chance it would be the hottest year on record, NOAA estimated last month.

Globally, March 2023 was the second hottest March on record and April 2023 was the fourth hottest April on record, according to NOAA. In the southern hemisphere April was the hottest month on record.

El Nino is a climate pattern characterised by the warming of ocean surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean.

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‘Climate time bomb ticking’: UN chief says carbon emissions must be urgently cut

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The event is typically associated with greater rainfall in parts of the southern US, central Asia and the Horn of Africa. It can also result in severe droughts in Australia, Indonesia and parts of southern Asia, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

But it said there was a 60 per cent chance of a shift from ENSO-neutral to El Nino from May to July 2023, increasing to about 80 per cent between July and September.

“We just had the eight warmest years on record, even though we had a cooling La Nina for the past three years and this acted as a temporary brake on global temperature increase,” WMO secretary general Petteri Taalas was quoted as saying by its website on May 3.

“The development of an El Nino will most likely lead to a new spike in global heating and increase the chance of breaking temperature records.”

According to the WMO’s “2016 State of the Global Climate” report, 2016 was the warmest year on record when the global temperature was substantially influenced by a strong El Nino event.

“The effect on global temperatures usually plays out in the year after its development and so will likely be most apparent in 2024,” the WMO said on its website.