Geography and Climate
Hangzhou is located in northwestern Zhejiang province, eastern China, at the southern end of the Grand Canal of China, on the plain of the mid-lower reaches of the Yangtze River (Cháng Jiāng). The prefecture-level region of Hangzhou extends west to the border with the hilly-country Anhui Province, and east to the flat-land near Hangzhou Bay. The city center is built around the eastern and northern sides of the West Lake, just north of the Qiantang River.
Hangzhou's climate is humid subtropical (Köppen Cfa) with four distinctive seasons, characterised by long, very hot, humid summers and chilly, cloudy and drier winters (with occasional snow). The mean annual temperature is 16.5 °C (61.7 °F), with monthly daily averages ranging from 4.3 °C (39.7 °F) in January to 28.4 °C (83.1 °F) in July. The city receives an average annual rainfall of 1,450 millimetres (57.1 in) and is affected by the plum rains of the Asian monsoon in June. In late summer (August to September), Hangzhou, along with other cities in the province, suffer typhoon storms, but typhoons seldom strike it directly. Generally they make landfall along the southern coast of Zhejiang, and affect Hangzhou with strong winds and stormy rains.
| Climate data for Hangzhou (1971–2000) | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
| Average high °C (°F) | 8.0 (46.4) |
9.4 (48.9) |
13.7 (56.7) |
20.6 (69.1) |
25.5 (77.9) |
28.6 (83.5) |
33.0 (91.4) |
32.4 (90.3) |
27.5 (81.5) |
22.7 (72.9) |
16.8 (62.2) |
11.1 (52.0) |
20.8 (69.4) |
| Average low °C (°F) | 1.5 (34.7) |
2.7 (36.9) |
6.4 (43.5) |
12.1 (53.8) |
17.0 (62.6) |
21.1 (70.0) |
24.9 (76.8) |
24.5 (76.1) |
20.3 (68.5) |
15.0 (59.0) |
8.9 (48.0) |
3.4 (38.1) |
13.2 (55.8) |
| Precipitation mm (inches) | 73.2 (2.882) |
84.2 (3.315) |
138.2 (5.441) |
126.6 (4.984) |
146.6 (5.772) |
231.1 (9.098) |
159.4 (6.276) |
155.8 (6.134) |
145.2 (5.717) |
87.0 (3.425) |
60.1 (2.366) |
47.1 (1.854) |
1,454.5 (57.264) |
| % humidity | 75 | 75 | 78 | 76 | 76 | 81 | 78 | 79 | 81 | 77 | 74 | 72 | 76.8 |
| Avg. precipitation days (≥ 0.1 mm) | 12.4 | 12.3 | 16.3 | 15.2 | 14.6 | 15.2 | 13.0 | 13.6 | 12.6 | 10.0 | 8.6 | 8.1 | 151.9 |
| Mean monthly sunshine hours | 107.2 | 99.1 | 109.5 | 140.6 | 163.3 | 141.9 | 216.1 | 209.5 | 147.2 | 148.3 | 137.6 | 136.2 | 1,756.5 |
| Source: China Meteorological Administration | |||||||||||||
Read more about this topic: Hangzhou
Famous quotes containing the words geography and, geography and/or climate:
“At present cats have more purchasing power and influence than the poor of this planet. Accidents of geography and colonial history should no longer determine who gets the fish.”
—Derek Wall (b. 1965)
“The totality of our so-called knowledge or beliefs, from the most casual matters of geography and history to the profoundest laws of atomic physics or even of pure mathematics and logic, is a man-made fabric which impinges on experience only along the edges. Or, to change the figure, total science is like a field of force whose boundary conditions are experience.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“A tree is beautiful, but what’s more, it has a right to life; like water, the sun and the stars, it is essential. Life on earth is inconceivable without trees. Forests create climate, climate influences peoples’ character, and so on and so forth. There can be neither civilization nor happiness if forests crash down under the axe, if the climate is harsh and severe, if people are also harsh and severe.... What a terrible future!”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)