Those swirling lines and triangular symbols on a weather map are a language. Once you can read it, a single chart tells …
Sharing your station’s data to networks like Weather Underground and the Ambient network is free, easy, and turns your h…
Measuring air temperature accurately is far harder than it looks, and most home stations get it wrong for one avoidable …
Fog is simply a cloud at ground level, but the different ways it forms explain why some mornings are socked in and other…
A heat dome can lock a region into days of dangerous, record-breaking heat. The mechanism behind it is a particular trap…
La Niña reshuffles weather patterns across the globe in broadly predictable ways. Here’s what the pattern is, and the ki…
Chongqing, a vast municipality in southwestern China, sits at the confluence of the Yangtze and Jialing rivers, on hilly terrain within the eastern Sichuan Basin at approximately 29.43°N, 106.91°E. Sheltered by surrounding mountains, it has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen Cfa) — with famously hot, humid summers and mild, damp, foggy winters — and is one of China's 'Three Furnaces' for its sweltering summer heat.
Summer, from June to August, is intensely hot and humid, with July and August the warmest months — average highs around 34–35°C and heatwaves that can exceed 40°C — earning Chongqing its 'Furnace' nickname. The basin traps hot, moist air with little wind, so nights stay warm and the humidity makes the heat feel brutal. Heavy monsoon rain and thunderstorms punctuate the season, sometimes causing flooding.
Winter, from December to February, is mild but damp, grey and foggy, with January the coolest month — average highs around 10°C and lows near 6–8°C, rarely reaching frost and almost never snow. Chongqing is one of the foggiest cities in China, and winter is dominated by persistent low cloud and mist trapped in the basin, giving raw, overcast, sunless days despite the mild temperatures.
Chongqing receives around 1,100–1,200 mm of rain a year, concentrated in the summer months from May to September, often falling as heavy nighttime rain and thunderstorms, while winter is drier but persistently damp and foggy. Sunshine is limited year-round. Live rainfall, humidity, and pressure readings for the city are shown in the panels above.
Chongqing is renowned on two counts: its sweltering summers, which place it among China's 'Three Furnaces' alongside Wuhan and Nanjing, and its persistent winter fog, which makes it one of the mistiest, least sunny cities in the country. The mountain-ringed basin traps both the summer heat and the winter cloud, and the city's steep, hilly terrain above the great rivers earns it the nickname 'Mountain City'.
To follow any single measurement in Chongqing more closely, use our live instruments: the online barometer for atmospheric pressure, the thermometer for temperature, the hygrometer for humidity, the anemometer for wind speed, the wind vane for wind direction, and the rain gauge for rainfall.