Shanghai's first orange heat alert this year

Shanghai issued this year's first orange heat alert on Tuesday, the fifth high-temperature day this year.

The city's meteorological bureau issued a yellow alert, the second lowest in its four-tier system, for heat at 9am on Tuesday, with the highest temperature expected to exceed 35 degrees Celsius in most parts of the city.

At 11:30am, the yellow alert was updated to orange, the second-highest in the weather system, warning the high was expected to reach 37 degrees in Shanghai's central areas, Minhang District and the west area of the Pudong New Area.

Shanghai is still under the influence of the plum-rain belt since it entered rainy season on June 17, with showers and thunderstorms forecast to sweep through Shanghai over the rest of the week.

The highest temperature over the next couple of days will be 31 to 34 degrees, and the lows will exceed 27 degrees.